Jeff Buckley the Robot Angel

            On Thursday morning I worked out the chords to all but the final verse of "Les femmes ça fait pédé” (Women Are So Very Gay) by Serge Gainsbourg. I should have it done on Friday and uploaded to Christian’s Translations. 

            I weighed 89.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            I continued listening to the discography of the Jackson Browne of Grunge, Jeff Buckley. There are a shitload of live recordings. He sings Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah with all the sweetness of a robot angel. He pronounces the “t” in “beauty" as “d" like trailer trash. 

            My plan in the late morning was to take a bike ride downtown and on the way back to stop at Freshco. But when I stepped out it was raining and so I just rode straight to the supermarket. I bought three bags of red grapes, two pints of strawberries, a half pint of raspberries, a bag of kettle chips, a pack of lean ground beef, three jars of apple sauce, Greek yogourt and petroleum jelly. I'm going to mix all those ingredients together. 

            I weighed 88.7 kilos before lunch. I had kettle chips with salsa and yogourt. 

            It rained all day so I didn’t take a bike ride, and since I’d already ridden to the supermarket I didn’t bother to do the home exercises that I would normally when I don’t ride my bike. 

            I’d sent an email to Albert Moritz earlier today expressing my confusion as to how I should proceed since he doesn’t have time to act as a an editor for my poetry manuscript. He got back to me and referred me to a previous response that he thought explained everything. I responded to tell him that was the email I’d found confusing in the first place. He says my work needs more editing and that he can’t do it, but doesn’t tell me how to move forward beyond self editing. If self editing was the solution I wouldn’t have needed his help at all. 

            I weighed 88.4 kilos at 17:45. 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug” and researched the chemicals bedbugs inject into their victims to kill pain, widen blood vessels and fight blood clotting. 

            I looked and listened to the video I’m making of my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” and saw that for the first words I sing, “Plug the female end of the chord” the audio and video are in sync. I will have to cut away after that, at least briefly. Right now I need to find footage to cut away to at the beginning after the camera pulls back to show me with the guitar. I started looking for film footage of animated power chords or a nest of snakes turning into a nest of cables. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen things like that perhaps in horror films or TV shows but after an hour of searching I couldn't find anything. I have to try different phrases for my search. I’ll try again tomorrow but maybe if all else fails I might have to shoot my own footage. 

            I had french fries and six chicken tenders with gravy, ketchup and scotch bonnet sauce while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

            In the first story Otis is leaving the jail on Sunday morning after coming in drunk on Saturday night. But while leaving his trips and hurts his knee. Barney insists that he fill out an accident form and take it to the bank to get it notarized. But the local notary is away on a hunting trip and so Otis has to find a notary in Mount Pilot. Mr Bentley, the notary he sees is also an attorney who tells Otis that he should sue the county. When Otis protests that he doesn’t want to sue his friends Andy and Barney, Bentley assures him he wouldn’t be suing them and in fact would be doing them a favour because after the county lost they would fix up the courthouse. But when Bentley meets with the county lawyer at the jailhouse, the county lawyer insists that Otis re-enact his steps leading up to the accident. Otis suddenly remembers that he was dragging his jacket on the floor and he tripped on it. Bentley has to slink away.

            Bentley was played by Jay Novello, who looked like a light skinned black man to me but was the son of Italian immigrants. He grew up in a diverse neighbourhood in Chicago and in addition to speaking English and Italian he picked up a lot of German and Greek. His affinity for languages got him work as a dialect specialist in radio. He played Mayor Lugato on McCale’s Navy. 

            In the second story Barney begins to moonlight as a real estate agent and he’s trying to negotiate a complicated deal in which several people sell their houses to each other and switch homes. Andy has always liked the Campbell house with the big trees on the lawn at the edge of town. The Simses are interested in Andy’s house. When the Simses come over to look at the house Opie tells them all the things that are wrong with the place. After they leave Andy is angry with Opie but Opie reminds him that he’d told him one should always be honest when selling something. When the Simses come back Andy tells them everything that’s wrong with the house but they still want to buy. Andy says he still has to look at the Campbell house and so he goes out there. Mr Campbell tries to also hide things but his son points out that the basement is flooded. Andy decides to keep his own place. 

            The story doesn’t mention that one requires a license to sell real estate, which Barney likely didn’t have.

April 30, 1991: The customers I moved gave me baby clothes and a credenza

Thirty years ago today

            It took me two hours to get to the shop on Tuesday and I arrived at 8:06. I went out with Bob and Gary met us at the job site half an hour after we got there. 

            The customer's wife gave me a bunch of apparently new boy's baby clothes and her husband gave me a credenza. For lunch they bought us subs and pop. 

            We took their stuff back to the warehouse to put in storage. I left the credenza there and arranged for Gary to bring it to the job site on Wednesday. 

            When I got home at around 19:00 Nancy was cooking. She told me that Mike Copping called. 

            A friend of my ex-girlfriend Brenda phoned because he wanted to sell me some comic books. 

            I called Beth at Foreplay Magazine but she hadn't yet read my story or sent me the latest issue. 

            I went to bed early.

Women with the Hots for Men in Drag

            On Wednesday morning I finished memorizing "Les femmes ça fait pédé” (Women Are So Very Gay) by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords but no one had posted them and so I started working them out. I might have them finished on Thursday. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos before breakfast. In the late morning I tackled my oven door for a third time. I made some slow progress. There is now a right angle of clear space running from the upper right hand corner of the oven window to the lower left hand corner. If I were to use a metal putty knife as a scraper I could probably clear all the caked in grease, but I don’t want to scratch the glass. 

            I weighed 88.9 kilos before lunch. I had seven saltines with old cheddar and a glass of the lemonade with jalapeno drink that I’d bought at No Frills. On first taste lemonade and jalapeno seem to combine to cancel each other out and taste like cucumber. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. 

            Not because of anything I saw but while I was riding I thought about self expression through fashion beyond one’s assigned gender. I think it’s not just about expressing oneself but also about whom one wants to attract or not attract. For instance, if I wasn’t too lazy to bother with things like that, there is a small part of me that might enjoy wearing makeup and a dress. But if I were to do so it would draw the attention of men, which is close to the last thing that I want to do. Now if it also attracted women it might cancel the problem of the male attraction out, but chances are it would not serve as any kind of allure that would draw women into my life. 

            I was also thinking about how the phrase “sexual assault” is a misnomer, when it is more often a type of theft. If you stole from someone's person you would be charged with theft and if you also used force there would be a separate charge of assault. The term “sexual assault” may actually be self defeating because you could more logically teach to not enter someone’s private sexual space if the argument was against stealing rather than violence that did not necessarily occur. 

            When I got back I was greeted by my rooftop neighbour Taro, who I haven’t seen since last fall because he hasn't been sitting outside his place drinking beer or barbecuing. He complained to me about the guy who’s living in the first apartment on the second floor with his own back door to the deck. He says that whenever he sees him he closes his door and it seems to Taro rude and antisocial. I said that even though the guy moved in months ago I have yet to even see him. I suggested that he may be particularly private because he’s gay. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos after my bike ride. I seem to start out the day heavier, perhaps with the weight from dinner the night before combined with the three glasses of water I drink every morning. 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug”. I worked on synchronizing the video for the performance of my song Instructions for Electroshock Therapy with the studio audio recording. I got it so the first few words, “Plug the female end of the chord” are lined up with the video, but in the video I extend the first line over a longer time so that when the line is finished I’m still moving my mouth. Maybe I’ll cut away to show the female end of a cord instead of showing me say the whole line. By the time I got to that point it was dinnertime anyway. 

            I cooked a package of Thai noodles and poached an egg on top while it was on the stove. I separated the egg from the noodles by putting it on a plate with the noodles in a bowl. I added scotch bonnet sauce to the noodles and ate them first and had the egg with a piece of toast. I had a beer with dinner while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

            In the first story Andy and Helen never seem to have time for each other because of work or other obligations. Suddenly Barney offers to do all of the duties that both Andy and Helen had for Saturday so the couple can go to have a picnic at the lake. But once they are out there, every time they try to become intimate Barney shows up with some problem related to the duties he’d promised to perform. Later after Andy has caught some fish for he and Helen to have for dinner they are confronted by a game warden who asks to see Andy’s license. Andy forgot to bring his licence with him and so they have to go to the justice of the peace and pay a $25 fine. But Andy didn’t bring any money and so he calls his office to get Barney to come out with some money. But Goober answers the phone and doesn’t pass on the entire message to Barney. He just tells Barney that Andy and Helen are at the justice of the peace and need $25 for a licence. Barney concludes that they are getting married and brings a crying Aunt Bee and a dressed up Opie out there only to find they aren’t getting married. Later, finally Andy and Helen get time alone together by sending Barney and Thelma Lou out to the lake. They are about to get intimate when Barney bursts in looking for a fishing pole. 

            In the second story the news is all over town that Andy and Helen are engaged. Andy has just heard about it and Helen is angry because she thinks he announced it. Later Andy goes over to Helen’s place to explain what happened to create the rumour. Barney buys a fortune telling game from a police auction and contained in an ornate box is a lamp, some cards and a book. The lamp and some flash powder are supposed to invoke the spirit of an 18th Century count. Barney gets Opie to play the game. The cards are laid out until two of a kind appear. The book is consulted and it says that Opie will be granted three wishes. Opie wishes for a jackknife and seconds later his father walks in and gives him one. His second wish is that he get a B in arithmetic and he gets one. Helen says later that he’d gotten a C plus but it was so close that she gave him a B to help build his confidence. Opie comes to tell Barney his final wish. He begins with “I wish that Miss Crump …” but Barney is so sure he knows what the wish is that he doesn’t let him finish. Barney is certain that it will come true and so he spreads the rumour. But later Opie says his wish had been for Miss Crump to be his teacher into the sixth grade. Helen is surprised because she just got notice that she would be teaching the sixth grade next year.

April 29, 1991: Nancy said she would like to try living with me again before the baby was born

Thirty years ago today 

            On Monday I met Donny and Bob at the job site. It was a small move and the customer was only transferring to the end of the same short street, but there was also a piano. We each got a $10 tip.

            Apparently Jim got fired for drinking and driving the truck on Saturday. 

            At home I tried to call the income tax people but the line was always busy. 

            Nancy called in the evening and told me she would like to try living with me again before the baby was born. She said she would come over on Tuesday afternoon. 

            I worked on some projects and made a mess going through my basket of pictures while working on a collage. 

            I masturbated. 

            There was still no mail from Foreplay Magazine or from anyone else.

Police Poop

            On Tuesday morning I memorized the first two verses and the chorus of "Les femmes ça fait pédé” (Women Are So Very Gay) by Serge Gainsbourg. The idea is that women are so gay and feminine in one sense that it makes them gay in the other sense and they attract gay men to them for that reason. This is the first Gainsbourg song from 1978 and there are only two others. I guess he was too busy recording his reggae album in Jamaica to put out many songs that year. 

             I weighed 89.2 kilos before breakfast. I made a second attempt at scrubbing the inside of my oven door with baking soda but only spent forty minutes on it this time. A little more of the window glass along the rim was cleared of black, caked in grease and there are now speckles of clarity scattered throughout the middle. 

            I weighed 88.7 kilos before lunch. I had kettle chips with salsa and yogourt. For dessert I mixed the juice from a can of peaches with coconut milk and honey. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. Under the railroad overpass on Brock a cop’s horse had dropped some shit. I was thinking why can't these people pick up after their pets like everyone else has to. I caught up with the cop at the College light and a little red floppy eared dog sticking its head out of a little red car was barking angrily at the police horse, which caused three dogs being walked across the street to join in the argument. 

            On Bloor there was a young guy in a toque and sunglasses doing tricks on a big tired bike with a sound system. He cut down the lane behind Yonge Street. I went down Yonge to Queen and headed west and at University the same young guy turned onto Queen. He was either just ahead or just behind me well into the west end as he popped almost vertical wheelies. I was worried that he was going to land on his back in the middle of the street because I’ve seen that happen, but he stayed in control. He even apologized when he got in my way once. 

            I weighed 88.4 kilos after my bike ride. 

            I worked a bit on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug.” 

            I worked on my project of synchronizing the video of the 1998 Riot Gallery performance of my song Instructions for Electroshock Therapy by Christian and the Lions with audio of the studio recording we made a few years later. The video intro is longer than the audio and so I spent more than an hour cutting bits off the beginning. By dinnertime they were about a second short of being lined up. I should have them in synch tomorrow and then I want to look for some outside footage, perhaps of wriggling snakelike cables to fit in the beginning and replace some of the guitar playing that doesn’t fit with the audio. 

            I had french fries and five chicken tenders while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

            In the first story the Mayberry centennial is approaching. There is an annual play about the founding of Mayberry that features a character called “Lady Mayberry” who does a monologue that is crucial to the play. Clara usually performs the part while Bee does the costumes, but suddenly Bee is feeling too much in the background. She did theatre when she was a child and received some accolades for her work so when Clara is called away to care for her ailing sister, Bee steps up. But it turns out that Bee is horrible at the part. John Majors the director asks Andy to break it to her that she can’t have the part. When Clara comes back to town Andy gets an idea how to get Bee to give up the play. Andy invites Clara to take care of him and Opie while Bee is working on the play. Bee can’t stand to have anyone else in her kitchen but what clinches it is when she hears Clara casually recite the role of Lady Mayberry. She is so good that Bee tells her to take back the part. 

            In the second story the darling family return to Mayberry and Charlene has a new baby. But it's not a social visit as in the mountain tradition they are looking for a boy to betroth to little Andalina so they can get married when they are older. After a day of unsuccessful looking they visit Andy and when they see Opie they declare that he is the one to marry Andalina. Andy says no but Briscoe won't take that for an answer. Finally, as usual Andy has to find a roundabout solution to this problem. Briscoe has an engagement contract for both Andy and Opie to sign and Andy agrees. Andy says something to Opie who runs upstairs, coming back with a pen. Andy says some nonsense words and gestures over the contract and then they both sign. Seconds later however their signatures disappear and Briscoe thinks they are witches and the deal is off. They are okay with being friends with witches but they don’t want them in the family.

April 28, 1991: We argued until we both started crying and then I hung up

Thirty years ago today

            I had gone to bed with my clothes on and woke up on Sunday at around 8:30. 

            Wayne called about work on Monday. 

            Except for the corner store I didn't go anywhere all day. I shaved and showered, I cleaned up, I worked on projects and I started a new collage. 

            I called Nancy at around 12:30 and we discussed the fact that she'd broken her commitment to live with me before the birth. She said she didn't know if she could keep it now. We argued until we both started crying and then I hung up. I called her later and we went through the whole thing again until I gave up and said, "Don't call me unless you have some good news. I deserve something in return for all this suffering."

Vamp et Vampire

            On Monday morning I translated “Vamp et vampires" by Serge Gainsbourg but couldn't find a video or audio online so I could learn the song and work out the chords. I know it was written for Zizi Jeanmaire and that she recorded it but no one has posted it so far. Maybe later on. I noticed a lot of stuff has appeared since she died last year so maybe it’ll show up sometime in the near future. I see it’s available on Amazon and other sites but I don't have a credit card so I'll wait. I published the song on my Christian’s Translations blog without a video or chords. 

            I weighed 89.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I went to the corner store to buy baking soda because I’d forgotten to buy it on Saturday at the supermarket. My project today was to clean the oven door and I didn’t want to use Comet because I thought it might create fumes later when the oven was on. I spent two hours scrubbing, dirtied five buckets of soapy water, went through the whole small box of baking soda and most of the detergent. I know I made progress because the oven window was fully blackened over with caked in grease when I started and when I stopped for the day at lunch time I’d cleared about an eighth of the glass. I nicked two fingers over the time I was working. I expected the actual inside of the oven to be difficult but had thought that I’d be able to finish the door in one session. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor and on the way home I stopped at Freshco to buy more baking soda and detergent so I could tackle the oven door again tomorrow. I bought two double size boxes of baking soda and a larger size bottle of Sunlight dish detergent. 

            Priscilla the express cashier had on an elegant glittery black face mask in addition to her usual elaborate eye makeup and very long false eyelashes. I wonder who she doesn’t work as a professional makeup artist instead of as a supermarket cashier. 

            I noticed one of my boxes of baking soda was leaking so she said I could replace it. But when I got back I saw the other one was leaking as well and so I went to replace that too. I took the last one from the shelf and it was leaking slightly also but not enough to be overly concerned. 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug". I copied from the DVD to my hard drive the video of the May 8, 1998 performance of Christian and the Lions at the Riot Gallery. I deleted the first half of the concert and then copied the second half to a new Movie Maker project. In the program I cut out everything before and after our performance of my song “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy." Then I imported the audio for the studio recording we'd made of the same song. The instrumental intro is longer in the video so I have to figure out if I'm just going to do a straight clip of the video beginning or of selected parts in ordr to match things up. Once the vocals start I doubt if the audio and video will be in sync the whole way through so I assume I’ll have to do a lot of delicate work that's new to me in order to get it right. I have some ideas for adding actual footage of electroshock therapy and perhaps other related images. We’ll see how it unfolds. I'm sure it will be a learning curve. At least I've got it started and I'm excited to see how it will turn out. 

            I had french fries and four chicken tenders for dinner while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

            In the first story Opie finds a wallet containing $50. Andy tells him that he’ll hold it at the sheriff's office for seven days and if no one comes to claim it he can keep the money. Opie spends the week planning how he will spend the money. The owner does not come and so Andy gives Opie the cash. He also gives him a piggy bank and suggests that he only spend $10 and save the rest. After Opie leaves Barney finds an ad in the lost and found section of the paper from a man named Parnell Rigsby saying he lost a wallet containing $50. Andy doesn't have the heart to tell Opie and so he decides to let Opie keep the money and Andy goes to withdraw what might be the last $50 from his own account. Meanwhile Opie comes into the empty sheriff's office with his new fishing rod and then Parnell Rigsby enters. He tells Opie he'd come to see the sheriff about his lost wallet but he’ll come back later. When Parnell gets home he finds Andy and Barney are talking to Parnell's wife and they've just given him back his wallet with $50 inside. When Parnell mentions that he'd met Opie and mentioned the wallet Andy angrily goes looking for Opie. At home he finds that Opie has broken open the piggy bank. Andy finds Opie in the sporting goods store and thinking that he’s on a spending spree he drags him out. He confronts Opie only to learn that when Opie met Mr Rigsby he realized the money wasn't his and so he broke the piggy bank and returned the fishing rod. Opie hands his father the $50 to give to Mr Rigsby and Andy realizes he has once again underestimated his son. He buys him a fishing rod to compensate for his mistake. 

            Mrs Rigsby was played by Mary Jackson, who played the bootlegger Emily Baldwin on The Waltons. She worked in theatre for many years and didn’t get film and television roles until she was in her middle age. She co-starred in Peter Bogdonavich’s first film, “Targets”. She played Jane Fonda’s mother in "Fun With Dick and Jane.” 

            In the second story Andy is offered a better paying job in Raleigh with a detective agency and he is considering taking it. He tells Barney that he will probably become the new sheriff. Andy goes for the meeting about the job and leaves Barney in charge. Barney deputizes Otis, Judd and Goober and they are all incompetent. There is a chaotic traffic jam in the middle of town and a boy gets his head stuck in the sewer grate. These events make Barney feel like he would rather not have the responsibility. In order to keep Andy in Mayberry he plots a fake crime wave and gets Goober and Floyd to play along, but their accounts of the crimes committed are too far fetched and Andy sees through the ruse. He tells Barney he’s already decided to stay in Mayberry after all. Andy seemed a little too certain that Barney could handle being sheriff considering how much he screws up. Just last season Barney was offered a job as sheriff in a nearby town and Andy was sure he couldn’t handle it.

April 27, 1991: There wasn't much stuff to move but what there was was fragile or heavy, plus there was a safe

Thirty years ago today 

            I got up at 6:45 on Saturday and headed for work. I made it to St George Station almost half an hour early and so I went to the bank machine, got a coffee and the last newspaper I needed and then headed up to Wilson Station. I waited for Scott fifteen minutes longer than I should have and found out only later that he'd called and cancelled. I left for the job site and I saw the guys in the truck as I was coming up in the bus and it turned off Wilson Heights. I got off and followed but I lost it. The street I was looking for was not in my Pearly's and so I figured it must be new. I asked a woman and she said there was a new section to the south, so I went in that direction and found it. There wasn't much stuff to move but what there was was fragile or heavy, plus there was a safe. It didn't take long and even with stopping for lunch we were done by 13:00. 

            I got to Main Station at 13:44 and checked out some lawn sales.

Yuki Shimoda

            When I went to bed after midnight on Sunday I didn’t coax the heat on even though it was a little chilly. It had shut itself off early Saturday morning because it was fairly warm and I wanted to see how cold it needed to be for it to kick back in. I got up to pee at around 3:00 and it was quite cold and so I went out in the hall and put the heat on. 

            Later in the morning I posted my translation of “Ciel de plomb" (The Sky is Leaden) by Serge Gainsbourg. I found the lyrics for his "Vamps et vampires” and started transcribing them, but almost immediately Word shut down to "close for editing". I went into Task Manager to shut down Word so I could reopen the document and it happened again after typing a few words. I shut Word down again, reopened the document, copied it and opened Open Office. I created a new Open Office document of 1977 Gainsbourg and pasted the contents of the Word document there. I started transcribing the song in Open Office but there are some keyboard tricks for doing French accents that only work in Word and so I had to use the Word document to make the accents so I could copy them into Open Office, but it shut down again. I managed to finally transcribe the song but it took me twice the time it would have normally done and I probably would have gotten the song partly translated if not for the Word fuck ups.

            I was feeling frustrated when I began song practice and I said to myself, "It's going to be a glitchy day with other things too." Sure enough my guitar was more out of tune than usual and my brain was screwing up a lot of chords. When I started my computer it got stuck in the Windows splash page of one of the nature images that comes up. I restarted. This happens from time to time and I restarted but then it got stuck on the Windows icon. I shut it down manually and restarted but it got stuck again. Then after I restarted the screen said auto repair was working. I was told to restart again and finally the computer started. 

            When the pandemic is over and I can shop again I’m going to seriously consider buying a new PC. It would be nice to have one before this computer crashes for good so I can casually transfer files rather having to do it in a panic just to get a functioning system again right away. 

            Around midday I returned to my project of sanding the bedroom door. I mostly smoothed down the plaster that was covering the hinges. I think I'll be ready soon to put down a little more plaster, then do a bit more sanding before I paint. 

            I weighed 88.6 kilos before lunch. I had seven saltines with old cheddar and a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. There was a person ahead of me who looked close to my age for most of the way along the Bloor bike lane. Ahead of him before Ossington was an elderly woman who was too much in the middle to pass. The guy in front of me held back but I called out to the woman that we wanted to pass her and she moved over. After Bathurst where the land sometimes gets elevated, the guy in front of me was trying to get past a slow cyclist but he miscalculated and wiped out over the edge of the elevated lane. I asked if he was okay but he said he was and thanked me very much for asking. 

            I weighed 87.9 kilos after my bike ride. It’s funny how when I was fasting I never went down that far. I guess those avocados are pretty fattening. 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug”. 

            I went through all of my DVDs to find live videos of Christian and the Lions performing my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy". There are three versions but one of them is already on You Tube. I want to try to synchronize the studio version with a live video and try to make a video that showcases the audio of the studio recording that’s already up on YouTube but only accompanied by a still photo. The two videos I could draw from are the one shot at the Riot Gallery and the other one from the Parkdale Festival. But the Parkdale one is outdoors in daylight and it might not fit the dark mood of the song. Maybe I can find some public domain footage of shock therapy to mix with it. Since I cant make any more recordings until my guitar is fixed I might as well do something productive with my old stuff to expose it to the public. 

            I had a can of chicken noodle soup for dinner, added the rest of my piri-piri sauce and dropped an egg in the bowl to cook while I was eating the soup. I had it with a piece of toast and a beer while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

            The first story didn’t have much substance to it but just a lot of silliness over how lovers and friends get angry at one another. It begins with Barney recounting to Andy a fight he had with Thelma Lou over how cheap he is and never takes her anywhere. Barney tells Andy that maybe Thelma Lou is not the girl for him and Andy responds, “Maybe.” But when Barney makes up with Thelma Lou he tells her that Andy had said what he’d said and so Thelma Lou was mad at Andy. Helen tells Thelma Lou that Andy wouldn’t have said that and she’s being childish. Thelma Lou is now mad at Helen for calling her childish. When Barney tells this to Andy he says he shouldn’t get upset over what a third party says. Barney relates this to Helen and Helen resents being referred to as a “third party” and so now she’s mad at Andy. Barney and Thelma Lou try to patch things up between Andy and Helen by taking them out on a blind date with each other. Andy and Helen make up but then Barney and Thelma Lou get into a fight about him never taking her dancing. Helen is about to intervene when Andy kisses her instead. 

            In the second story Barney has given Fred, the helper at the grocery store three warnings about sweeping garbage onto the street and when he does it again he gives him a ticket. Fred is so pissed off that he threatens Barney that if he ever catches him out of uniform he’ll break every bone in his body. Barney begins to wear his uniform all the time, even when he’s off duty. Andy senses there is something wrong and when Fred comes to pay his fine he tells Andy that he’s going to beat Barney up if he catches him out of uniform. For some reason Fred is not arrested for threatening an officer of the law. There is a dance coming up and Andy learns that instead of wearing his salt and pepper suit, which is perfect for dancing, he plans on wearing his uniform. Andy says he knows about the threat but Barney says that he’s wearing his uniform to protect Fred. Barney has been taking judo lessons and he doesn’t want Fred to pick a fight with him that he’s going to lose. Andy goes to Mount Pilot and talks to Barney’s judo instructor Mr Izamoto, who tells him that he likes Barney very much and he tries very hard but he’s not very good at judo and a 91 kilogram man would kill him. Andy asks a favour of Mr Izamoto and the night of the dance Andy informs Fred of Barney’s judo prowess. Fred says he’s not worried. He tells him that at 20:00 Barney will be walking by out of uniform. In the dark Fred ambushes the man in the salt and pepper suit who he thinks is Barney, but it’s really Mr Izamoto, who throws Fred around a few times. Later Andy convinces Barney to wear his suit to the dance and to talk to Fred first. Fred is afraid of Barney and says he’ll obey the law from now on. 

            Mr Izamoto was played by Yuki Shimoda, who co-starred in the TV series Johnny Midnight. He was one of the first Asian actors to appear on Broadway, working as a waiter during the day and as a dancer at night. He later got a degree in accounting.

April 26, 1991: The suspense was killing me whether or not I was going to have cockroaches in the new place

Thirty years ago today

            I got up at 5:45 on Friday. I met Roy and Scott at 8:00 at the donut shop at Yonge and Finch. Scott and I worked with Jim doing a small unloading job and we were done in no time. 

            I caught the Keele bus to Wilson Station and got home just as Nancy was leaving. She was going to spend a night or two at her parents' place. I hoped she wouldn't have the baby there. She didn't call me later. 

            I categorized two Tomb of Dracula comics and worked on some projects. 

            I cleaned the bedroom windows inside and out. 

            I masturbated. 

            I took the streetcar to the Hasty Market to buy pita and then walked back. I heated some falafel.

            The suspense was killing me. Was I going to have cockroaches in the new place or not?

Wallace Ford

            On Saturday morning I finished editing “Ciel de plomb” (The Sky is Leaden) and published it on my Christian’s Translations blog. 

            Before breakfast my digital scale said that I weighed 86.5 kilos. I don’t know if I believe it since that's the lowest it’s been in a long time. 

            In the late morning I took a bike ride. It was a warm day and I only wore a shirt and not my hoody under my leather jacket. On the way up Brock I found a box of things that had been thrown out, among them a couple of strong coat hangers. I took the two strongest ones because a few months ago the one that I’d been using for my heavy leather jacket broke. I rode to Yonge and Bloor and then home.

            I stopped to pee at my place before heading out to the drug store and the supermarket. At Vina Pharmacy I picked up a filled prescription and also bought some ear plugs for the next person who complains about my singing and playing in the morning. I asked if they were going to have vaccinations at Vina and the pharmacist said he thinks so but the weekday staff would know better. 

           At No Frills the grapes were extremely cheap so I got nine bags. I also bought a pack of three chicken legs, orange juice, hot salsa and skyr. 

           I had seven saltines with old cheddar and lemonade for lunch. 

           I backed up all my most important files from the last few months to my external hard drive. I deleted all the ones I don’t need on my main hard drive, including the song practice videos that I’d made, some photos and the music downloads that I've already listened to. 

           I weighed 88.6 kilos at 18:30. That seems more realistic than my weight before breakfast. 

           I worked some more on colourizing parts of my black and white skateboarder photo. 

           I digitally repaired a few photos from 1987. 

           I had a poached egg and toast with a beer for dinner while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

           In the first story Bee gets a letter from her old boyfriend Roger and then invites him for Friday night supper and to stay the weekend. Roger is a joker and he has an annoying habit of trying to show Andy how to do things only to screw them up. Andy doesn’t like him but Bee seems to be charmed. When Andy asks Roger his plans he says he could either head for Florida if someone leant him $400 or he could stay and marry Bee. Andy calls his bluff and tells him Bee’s in the kitchen. Roger ends up leaving but asks Andy if he ever played poker. Andy says he used to and he was pretty good. 

            Roger was played by Wallace Ford in his final television appearance. He had a tragic early life. As a young child in England named Samuel Jones he became separated from his parents and wound up in an orphanage. He was shipped to Canada to the Toronto branch of the orphanage and ended up in fourteen farming foster homes before he ran away. He joined a Vaudeville troupe called The Winnipeg Kiddies and was with them for three years. Then he became a teenage hobo and travelled with a fellow runaway named Wallace Ford. His companion was crushed to death by a train while trying to hop a freight car. Later when he started acting in the States he took on the name of Wallace Ford. He appeared on Broadway several times before starting to work in films. In 1932 he had the lead role in the notorious film “Freaks” and co-starred with Jean Harlow in “The Beast of the City.” In 1937 he played George in the original Broadway production of “Of Mice and Men.” He appeared in over 200 films. In the mid 1930s he did a search for his parents and found his widowed mother living in an English trailer park and married to a blind match seller. He was buried in an unmarked grave. 

            In the second story Andy and Barney learn that a convict named Ralph Neal has escaped from the state prison. They should really look into security at that state prison because there seems to have been an awful lot of escapes in the last five years. Barney thinks they should be prepared in case the convict comes to Mayberry, but Andy is not worried because the state prison is far away. Barney buys a mutt that is supposed to be part bloodhound and tries to train it. But the dog won’t follow scents like Barney wants him to and prefers sleeping. The only thing that activates the dog is to blow on the dog whistle but that causes Blue to attack Barney whenever he does so. They get word that the convict is in the Mayberry area after all and Barney insists on bringing Blue when they drive to search the woods to the north of town. Andy thinks the dog is useless and heads off to do a search by himself. Barney shows the dog the wanted poster with Neal’s photo and suddenly Blue takes off. Blue runs immediately to a man sitting by the lake but Barney doesn’t realize it's Neal until it's too late and Barney is captured. Neal keeps Barney as a hostage in a cabin. He tiers Barney up and then goes to sleep. Barney tries to escape but then Blue starts barking and Neal makes Barney sit down again. Andy finds the cabin but he is captured as well. Neal forces Barney to trade clothes with him and is about to escort Barney and Andy to the squad car for his getaway when he wonders where Blue is. Andy tells him he has to blow Blue's whistle from Barney’s pocket. He does so and Blue attacks him, allowing them to capture him. After Neal is in a cell Barney keeps trying to train blue and tries to get him to fetch the cell keys. Andy is doing some work in the other cell and asks Barney for help. Barney absent mindedly locks the cell door on him and Andy. They both they and Neal try to coax Blue to bring them the keys. Finally Barney blows the whistle and Blue brings the keys to him. 

            Neal was played by Arthur Batanides, who played Mr Kirkland on Police Academy. He played Lieutenant D'Amato on an episode of Star Trek. He tended to either play tough villains or parodies of tough villains on popular TV series like Time Tunnel and Get Smart. He was married to model Midge Ware for ten years and then to Anne Rasmussen.

April 25, 1991: I got Nancy to give me a hand job and it was the closest thing to sex we'd had in a long time

Thirty years ago today 

            On Thursday morning I got Nancy to give me a hand job. She used oil and it was the first time we'd had "sex" in a long time. 

            I went out to get some groceries. Nancy had to go and meet our midwife Bridget at 14:00 and so she had to leave my place at 13:00 and didn't have time to eat all of her breakfast. She had to leave behind the hard boiled egg, the corn flakes with soy milk and the sprouts. 

            I did some cleaning and then headed for the subway. I took the porn I'd written for Foreplay Magazine and dropped it into their box, then I caught the streetcar to my old place on Maynard to check my mail. When I got off at the stop I saw Judy and her other son. I went to visit Charlie but he wasn't home and neither was Carlo, so I just went to my mail box. It was full of junk mail and one thing for me from that escort agency.

Maudie Prickett

            On Friday morning I looked for the chords for "Calypso Blues" by Boris Vian but no one has posted them and so tomorrow I’ll start working them out myself. 

            I finished working out the chords for “Ciel de plomb" (The Sky is Leaden) by Serge Gainsbourg. I ran through the song in French and English and then uploaded it to Christian's Translations to prepare it for blog publication. I’ll probably have it posted on Saturday morning. 

            I weighed 89.6 kilos at breakfast. 

            In the late morning I cleaned and scrubbed the front and sides of my stove. The outside looks nice for the first time in years but next I have to clean the oven and that’s going to take at least a week of work. 

            While working I listened to Jeff Buckley’s only studio album “Grace”. I don’t quite get what all the fuss over Jeff Buckley is about and why David Bowie listed “Grace” as being one of the ten albums he would take to a desert island. There are no songs that stick in one’s head and his version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is not as good as the original or even better than K.D. Lang’s version. Jeff Buckley had a very good voice but it wasn’t as good as his father’s in the sense that Tim Buckley really experimented with his voice whereas Jeff just sang gratuitously high every now and then to give the illusion of melody. I’d say “Grace” is a good album but it’s not a “Holy fuck that’s good!” album like some of the ones Arcade Fire has put out. For a first effort it’s pretty good and chances are if he’d lived he might have created something outstanding by his third album. 

            I weighed 88.6 kilos before lunch. I had chips, salsa and yogourt and for dessert I had the juice from a can of peaches with coconut milk and honey. 

            I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor in the afternoon. On my way home along Queen I followed a bus that had an ad on the back for a law firm called Avanessy Giordano. There were separate pictures of the two lawyers and the guy was assuming that kind of awkward pose that cheap lawyers often have for their portraits in which he’s twisted slightly and leaning toward the camera with one shoulder forward. I guess the message is supposed to be, “I’m leaning toward you because I’m interested in your case.” The weirdest thing though was their slogan, which sounded like it was created by someone who either flunked grammar or couldn’t speak English in the first place: “Fighting for better”. They could at least finish the sentence and show they have an education. 

            As I passed Trinity-Bellwoods I saw the park was full of people and no one seemed to be wearing a mask. There was a gathering of people around a guy shouting “Freedom!” With 2000 new covid cases in the city a day the shout should more honestly be “Covid forever!” 

            Benji and Sankara were standing outside my building when I pulled up and so I chatted with them for about an hour. I weighed 88 kilos at 18:45. 

            I did some research on the odour of bedbugs for my poem series “My Blood in a Bug”. It’s funny that of the fifteen things people say bedbugs smell like, none of them match how I think they smell like rancid animal fat. 

            I weighed 88.2 kilos before dinner. I had french fries and chicken tenders with gravy while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

            In the first story Aunt Bee is lamenting the fact that their relatives never visit and so Andy says she can invite her sister and her family for a weekend. Her overbearing sister Nora arrives with her obnoxious husband Ollie and their two bratty boys. Nora takes over in the kitchen, Ollie takes off with the squad car and the siren blaring and Opie has to sleep with the nasty boys in the same bed. It’s only supposed to be for the weekend but when Bee politely says she wishes they could stay longer, Ollie decides to take his sick leave so they can stay for a week. When the news on the radio says that a couple of dangerous convicts have escaped from a nearby prison, Andy is not worried because they usually head for the coast. Ollie brags that if they came to Mayberry he and Andy would take care of them. After Andy learns they’ve been captured he gets an idea and tells Ollie that the escapees are heading this way and that he’s going to help Andy capture them. Ollie packs up the car and his family and leaves. 

            Nora was played by Maudie Prickett, who performed in over 300 productions in over four decades. She co-starred on “Hazel”, played Jack Benny’s secretary on “The Jack Benny Program” and Tabitha’s teacher on “Bewitched”. Jonathan Winters named his drag character “Maude Frickert” after her. 

            In the second story Ernest T Bass returns. He says he asked his girl Rowena to marry him and she refused because he has no education. He tells Andy if he doesn’t help him get educated in a week he’ll break every window in Mayberry. It doesn’t do any good to put Ernest in jail for his mischief since he has the mysterious ability to escape, so Andy agrees top help him. Andy gets Helen to let Ernest take her fifth grade class but he is very disruptive. Helen does something she’s never done with any child and raps Ernest on the knuckles with a ruler. Suddenly Ernest is in love with Helen. Barney concludes that Helen is a mother figure for Ernest, since his mother used to use corporal punishment too. It looks like Ernest is not going to learn anything in time and so Andy works with him to memorize a few basics and they give him a diploma, not for passing but for learning. He proudly takes it to Rowena. 

            There’s a goof in the claim that Ernest can't read or write since from the start he's been throwing through windows rocks tied with messages he’s written.

April 24, 1991: After our argument Nancy and I slept apart and didn't have much to say when we got up

Thirty years ago today

             After our argument Nancy and I slept apart and didn't have much to say on Wednesday morning. She went out around noon to keep an appointment with our midwife Bridget. I started cleaning up soon after she left and the place was all tidied up by the time she got back. 

            I mopped the floors and then started scraping off the sign that had been glued to the window. Nancy started helping me and when we got it all off I took all the lower living room windows out and washed them. Then I went outside and cleaned the upper ones. 

            We went to The Fox and saw The Gait Girl, then we went for wings at Fitzgerald's. I had two beers. 

            I stayed up and worked on a collage while Nancy went to bed, but she couldn't sleep and so I read to her.

Beautiful Lies

            On Thursday morning I finished memorizing “Calypso Blues” by Boris Vian. I did an initial search for the chords but none showed up. They may be there under the alternative title for the song “J'ai trop de boulot' (I've Too Much Labour). I'll try again tomorrow. 

            I worked out the chords for the chorus of “Ciel de plomb” (The Sky is Leaden) by Serge Gainsbourg. The rest of the song should fall into place now. 

            I weighed 88.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            Today was laundry day, so in the late morning I headed over to the laundromat. While my stuff was in the washer I rode to Freshco where I bought eight bags of green grapes, a pint of strawberries, a half pint of raspberries, kettle chips, canned peaches, Greek yogourt, a jar of honey and a box of spoon size shredded wheat. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos before lunch. I had kettle chips, salsa and yogourt. 

            I got the mark back for my final Brit Lit 2 essay and I got an A. My TA, Carson Hammond’s main comment was:

            “In this well-written essay, you deconstruct Eliot's theory of literary realism by way of a compelling and provocative engagement with Wildean aesthetics. Throughout, you make some really insightful points about both critics in a manner that nicely brings together a more abstract discussion about literary representation with a concrete analysis of inter-class relations. As I point out in my marginal notes, much of what you are criticizing Eliot for remains highly relevant to our own time, as I'm sure you've considered: I detect among many of our own middle-class professions a similarly veiled contempt for the subjects of their paternalistic sympathies. Although there were certain moments where I think your argument would have been strengthened by the inclusion of more direct quotation from the texts at hand (instead of just paraphrase plus page number), on the whole this is excellent. Well done, Christian, and thank you for all of your thoughtful contributions to our class. Best of luck with everything ahead!” 

            I worked on my poem series, “My Blood in a Bug”. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos at 17:50. 

            I went through my James Brown discography and deleted 175 of the songs, mostly the love songs and kept a lot of the funky stuff. 

            I colourized some more of my black and white skateboarder photo. 

            I digitally corrected some of the flaws on a 1987 photo of my ex-girlfriend Brenda. 

            I cooked in the oven the frozen chicken tenders that I’d gotten from the food bank a few months ago and had three with a potato and gravy. 

            I watched the first two episodes of the fifth season of The Andy Griffith Show. In the first story Opie’s teacher Helen Crump is teaching US history through traditional folk dances. One day when Opie’s partner is at the dentist Helen takes her place and Opie falls in love with her. He tells his father that he likes a girl who’s older than he is but won’t tell him who it is. Andy thinks the girl must be just a little bit older and he tells him that it’s all right. But when Opie spends 80 cents on a pair of silk stockings he tells him it’s not really appropriate and he'd rather he take them back. Then Opie asks Barney's advice and he says to read her poetry over the phone. Opie calls up Helen and recites a love poem that Barney is dictating to him. Helen tells Opie to come over right away. When Barney realizes it’s Helen Opie likes he's embarrassed about the poem. He tells Andy and Andy goes over to Helen's. Andy explains to Opie that Helen is his girl and Opie says he didn’t know that and wouldn't have done anything if he had. He asks if they are going to get married some day and Andy says that maybe they will. Opie says as long as she’s in the family he doesn’t care if she's his wife or his mother. 

            In the second story it’s Barney's fifth anniversary as a deputy and Aunt Bee, Thelma Lou, Floyd, Opie and Andy throw a surprise party for him. But earlier that day Andy got the bad news that the sheriff’s offices have been switched to the Civil Service and that from now on there will be a height and weight requirement for deputies. Barney falls short on both counts and so Andy comes up with a scheme. Aunt Bee is fattening Barney up with heavy meals and he has to spend three hours a day dangling from a neck harness to make himself taller. He gets the extra height he needs but then gets the hiccoughs and can’t eat. Andy gets around it when he reads that the deputy is allowed to wear his name tag on a chain under his shirt during the physical. He puts his tags on a very heavy chain and Barney passes the weight requirement.

April 23, 1991: Nancy slept on my lap in the park

Thirty years ago today

            Nancy came over with Susan late Monday night, bringing a few things and the juicer. Susan was going to take our picture together but I was in a bad mood and didn't want to. Nancy stayed over and neither of us slept very well but we did turn to face each other in the night. 

            On Tuesday morning she made me breakfast while I went to the supermarket to buy juice. I got the newspapers for free. 

            We went for a walk later so she could cash her GST cheque. 

            She slept on my lap in the park. 

            We went to Fitzgerald's where she had fish and chips and I had chili with a beer. 

            We went home and I changed my sweater for work. The job didn't last long and I was home around 19:30. 

             Nancy and I were going to take a walk before bedtime so she could try to get tired, but we had an argument about the place of birth again.

Frank Sutton

            On Wednesday morning I worked out the chords for the first verse of "Ciel de plomb" (The Sky is Leaden) by Serge Gainsbourg and all but the end of the second verse. I think all the verses basically have the same chords but there’s a repetition at the end of a couple of verses that isn't in "Stormy Weather". Plus he's added a couple more verses to his translation of “Stormy Weather" than are in the original. 

            Around midday I sanded some more of the plaster on the frame of my bedroom door. I also sanded down some of the plaster that partially covers the lower hinge and next time I’ll work on the upper. I don’t think there's a reason to be too much of a perfectionist on this project because I could really go on for years if I let myself and I don’t think the result would be that noticeable. After a bit more sanding I have to plaster a few more holes and then sand again. Hopefully I’ll be able to paint the door and frame in the next month or so. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos before lunch. I had seven saltines and old cheddar with lemonade. 

            At around 16:00 I went out to the liquor store to buy a six pack of Creemore. 

            After that I was headed out for my bike ride when I met Caesar on the stairs. He complained that my making music in the morning was keeping him awake. It's weird because in all the years he's lived above me he's never complained about noise and I've been playing and singing every morning for well over a decade. In fact I used to play at 6:00 and he never said anything. Apparently hearing loss in the elderly makes them ironically sensitive to all noise because they can’t selectively filter sounds out like a younger person can. Caesar was huffing and puffing so painfully as he climbed the stairs that it didn’t look like he'd be able to make it. He's 79 now and it's just going to get harder and harder for him to live on the third floor and function without someone taking care of him. 

            I rode to Yonge and Bloor and weighed 89 kilos when I got back. 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug.” 

            I want to move some files to my external hard drive, but I decided to go through my James Brown discography first and delete the songs I don’t want. Some of the songs are just Brown hacking his own style and it's still good but not as engaging. Other files are just recordings of his band The J.B.s cutting loose by themselves and they're great but I don't need instrumental music. I only got up to editing 1972 when it was time for dinner. 

            I've been having my eggs fried for years but my favourite style is actually poached. I've avoided poaching eggs for a long time because I've experienced the whites sticking to the bottom of the pot. But I made a poached egg with toast for dinner and had not problem with sticking. Maybe because I washed the pot while it was still hot. I had my egg and toast with a beer while watching the last two episodes of the fourth season of The Andy Griffith Show. 

            In the first story Andy, Barney and Gomer take Opie and several other boys camping. Gomer admits he knows nothing about living off the land but Barney of course is full of bombast about abilities that he doesn’t really have. The next morning Opie is missing and Andy goes looking for him, expecting Barney and Gomer to stay with the other boys. But Barney leads Gomer off to search as well and they get lost, although Barney won’t admit it. When they get hungry Barney builds an ineffectual pheasant trap and then tries unsuccessfully to start a fire by spinning a stick in a hole in a log. Meanwhile Andy finds Opie, who had wandered off to pick berries. A friend named Foley arrives with roast chickens from Aunt Bee and with bows and arrows for the boys. While Foley is teaching archery Andy goes looking for Barney and Gomer. When he finds Gomer he tells him not to let on that they are lost because Barney’s feelings would be hurt if the boys make fun of him. He tells Gomer to sneak some match heads into the hole in the log and after Barney starts the fire and goes to get wood, Andy gives Gomer a roasted chicken and says to tell Barney the trap was successful. Andy then leads them back to camp by pretending to be a lake loon. 

            The season finale served as the pilot for the new series “Gomer Pyle, USMC”. Gomer comes by the court house and announces to Andy that he's going to join the Marine Corps. Since he’d received his draft notice he has decided to enlist. Andy clearly doesn't think Gomer can make it but offers to drive him to the base. Gomer is late and too talkative and gets on the bad side of Sergeant Carter from the start. When the uniforms are delivered to the barracks they include Carter’s dress uniform. The other recruits take advantage of Gomer’s naivety and trick him into wearing the sergeant’s dress blues. Carter blows his top and makes Gomer sit with a bucket over his head. The colonel is coming to inspect the recruits and Carter is sure that when he sees Pyle he will send him home. But Andy overhears this in the bar and has a talk with Carter. Andy lets slip the name of General Lucias Pyle and lets Carter's imagination run wild. Carter starts thinking Gomer must be the general’s son planted as a test and so he works personally to help Gomer prepare himself for inspection. The colonel is most impressed with Gomer and says he’d almost think he was Lucias Pyle's son if the general had ever had any children, but he didn’t. 

            Sergeant Carter was played by Frank Sutton and he continued in the role for five seasons of Gomer Pyle USMC and became famous for phrases like, "Move it, Move it, Move it!” and "I can't HEAR you!" Later he co-starred in the Jim Nabors Hour. In the 1950s he played Cadet Radisson on Tom Corbitt, Space Cadet. He also had roles on “The Edge of Night" and “The Secret Storm", which were my mother’s two favourite soap operas. He co-starred in the films, “Four Boys and a Gun” and “The Satan Bug”. He died of a heart attack at the age of fifty while rehearsing the play “Luv”.

April 22, 1991: Nancy asked me to accept her giving birth at her parents' place and I gave in again but I didn't know if I could forgive her

Thirty years ago today

            I woke up in the late morning when Nancy called to ask if I wanted to meet our midwife Bridget with her. I said "Okay". She asked me to call her and I tried several times but there was no answer. I had breakfast and worked on some projects, then I called Nancy back. She told me to keep trying to reach Bridget and she'd call me later. Nancy got an appointment for 14:00 but Bridget wasn't home. 

            She asked if I wanted to go to a movie. We looked at what was playing and she said she'd call me back. A couple of hours later she phoned to tell me that she didn't want to go because her eyes were hurting. 

            She asked me to accept her giving birth to the baby at her parents' place and I gave in again. I didn't know if I could forgive her.

Weaponized Cleavage

            On Tuesday at about 2:30 I turned the heat back on. 

            Later that morning I transcribed four sets of chords for "Stormy Weather" and placed them on the lyrics for “Ciel de plomb" by Serge Gainsbourg. One is for Etta James’s version, another for Ella Fitzgerald's and two are for Billy Holiday’s, with one simpler than the other. I’ll start trying them out tomorrow to hear which ones work for me. 

            I weighed 89.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I scrubbed all three sides of the top of my kitchen stove and a bit of the oven door. I’ll probably be able to finish the front and sides of the stove in my next kitchen session. After that the dreaded oven might take a few days of work. 

            I weighed 89.3 kilos before lunch. I had chips, salsa and yogourt. 

            In the afternoon before taking a bike ride I checked the temperature and it was five degrees. I wore two scarves, my winter gloves and my hoody under my jacket and I was comfortable riding to Yonge and Bloor. It was kind of a dreary grey day for a ride though. 

            When I got back Benji and Shankara were outside our building chatting. I told them not to turn the heat on because I’d built a snowman in my apartment and they would be guilty of snowmanslaughter. We talked about Caesar's complaints about the heat. I said that since it was going down to minus one tonight I would definitely be turning on the heat. Benji wants me to do it because he doesn’t want to be responsible when Caesar complains. Benji says Caesar should have a health care worker visiting him on a regular basis but he would have to pay and so he won’t. Shankar says Caesar told him he has close relatives not far away but they are upscale and won't visit him in our building.

            While we were talking in the chilly afternoon air a big, voluptuous black woman walked by dressed for much warmer weather in tight jeans and with weaponized cleavage. 

            I worked on editing the opening poem for “My Blood in a Bug." 

            I listened to and watched the last video of my 2020 recording project and decided there was nothing worth keeping from it that I haven’t already uploaded to YouTube. I deleted the whole thing. 

            I went through all my sound recordings of the last year and renamed the song files according to the dates they were recorded. I deleted a lot of files in which I was just testing the microphone. 

            I colourized some more of my skateboarder photo. 

            I edited some of the photos of my ex-girlfriend Brenda from 1987. 

            I had a potato and my last chicken leg with some gravy for dinner while watching two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. The first story was thematically a repeat of one from two seasons before. Barney misunderstands when he sees Andy and Helen in the jewellery store together and thinks he’s buying her an engagement ring. He tells everybody that they are getting married and then plans a surprise party for them. He gets all of Andy’s friends to chip in for a gift and Bee decides to have Andy’s bedroom renovated to so that it is more suitable for the taste of a bride. The room is wallpapered and they are given a canopy bed. When Andy and Helen walk in on the surprise and see the bedroom it is very embarrassing for Helen. Andy has to tell everyone they’ve made a mistake but that since they are all there they should have a party anyway. Andy tells Helen that when he said it was a mistake he meant for now. She says she’s not ready yet either. 

            In the second story Thelma Lou needs a ride to Mount Pilot for a dentist's appointment. Gomer offers to drive her and Andy asks Barney if he’s worried about Thelma Lou being alone with another man. Barney comments smugly that he's got Thelma Lou in his hip pocket. During the drive Gomer innocently repeats the comment to Thelma Lou and she decides to teach Barney a lesson. She asks Gomer to go to the movies with her. Barney is upset but still won’t swallow his pride. Andy explains the situation to Gomer and comments that if it were another man all he would have to do is take Thelma Lou’s advances seriously and she would go running back to Barney. Gomer decides to try to help Barney by making advances on Thelma Lou, but she overhears Gomer talking about his plan on the phone and so she decides to make advances on him. Barney looks in the window when she does so. Barney goes to Andy and so does Gomer. Barney wants to fight Gomer. Andy takes them both over to Thelma Lou but with Barney in the car. He explains to Thelma Lou that according to Gomer's upbringing, now that she has kissed Gomer she has to marry him. She takes the kiss back and Gomer accepts it even though taking the kiss back looks exactly like giving him a kiss. She and Barney make up but he still thinks he has her in his pocket.

April 21, 1991: I accepted Nancy might not live with me after the birth but still wanted the baby born at my place. She said she hated me

Thirty years ago today 

            I woke up on Sunday with Nancy's phone number repeating itself in my head but I didn't call her. I did some work and brooded about the place of birth. 

            The phone rang and it was my ex-girlfriend Brenda. We talked for half an hour about Nancy and she said she thought I was going to have a rough time with her and that she would always run back to her family. 

            I called Nancy right after and we discussed and finally argued about the place of birth again. At first I thought I heard her say she would have the baby at her parents' house and then she said she wouldn't. She said she wanted to come and live at my place before the birth but needed me to understand that she couldn't commit to living with me afterwards. I accepted that but said I still needed the birth to be at my place. She said she hated me.

George Lindsey

            On Monday morning I woke up at 2:30 and after taking a pee I took my clothes off and went back to bed. I got up at 5:00 having had about six and a half hours of sleep. I guess it was too much because my back was sore. 

            I memorized the fifth verse of “Calypso Blues" by Boris Vian. I have one more verse to nail down. 

            I finished memorizing “Ciel de plomb" (The Sky is Leaden) by Serge Gainsbourg. Since no one has posted the chords for it I looked for the chords for “Stormy Weather”, which has the same melody, and I started transcribing the ones for Billy Holiday’s version. I'll gather five sets and then decide which to use for “Ciel de Plomb". 

            In the late morning I did some more sanding of the plaster on the right bottom of the frame of my bedroom door. I made some progress and might be almost done in that section. 

            I weighed 90 kilos at lunchtime. I had chips, salsa and yogourt. 

            I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor in the afternoon. 

            When I got back I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug”. 

            I cut a video of two songs from my July 3 recording session and then deleted the rest. I just have July 4 to go. 

            I worked some more on colourizing parts of my black and white skateboarder photo. 

            I edited some photos from the fall of 1987.

            I weighed 89.3 kilos before dinner. I had a potato and a chicken leg with gravy while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

            In the first story Andy and Barney are working late so they can finish the court house inventory and be free to take Helen and Thelma Lou to the dance the next night. The girlfriends drop by to ask if they want to come to the movies but they can't and so the women go alone. Andy sends Barney out to the diner to get them dinner so they can keep working. Gomer drops by with his cousin Goober. Gomer has mentioned Goober since his first appearance on the show but this is the first time he’s actually appeared. The very first thing Goober does is his horrible impersonation of Cary Grant: “Judyjudyjudyjudy!" All of Goober's impersonations are in his own voice but Gomer is impressed. Barney comes back from the diner with the Fun Girls, Daphne and Skippy in tow. He ran into them at the diner and they attached themselves to him, compelling him to give them a tour of the jail and then to drive them home to Mount Pilot. They refuse to go home without Andy driving them as well and so he gives in. But Helen and Thelma Lou are returning from their movie when they see the boys get in the car with the Fun Girls. The next day Andy and Barney get hell for it and Helen and Thelma Lou refuse to go to the dance with them. Andy is planning on spending the night home in his dejection but then Barney shows up again with the Fun Girls. Andy has no choice but to go to the dance with them. At the dance Helen and Thelma Lou are sitting with Gomer and Goober. Andy has to dance with Daphne and he requests the bandleader announce a changing partners when the music stops game. Finally Andy gets to dance with Helen and explains everything. Barney also makes up with Thelma Lou. The Fun Girls hook up with Gomer and Goober. 

            Goober was played by George Lindsey. At the end of this season Jim Nabors would be leaving the show to star in Gomer Pyle, USMC and so Goober is brought in to be the dumb hick comic relief replacement. He continued the role of Goober on Mayberry RFD and later on Hee Haw. Despite playing an uneducated yokel, Lindsey had a Bachelor of Bio-Science degree and worked as a science teacher before becoming an actor. He was apparently Gene Roddenberry’s first choice to play Spock on Star Trek. He founded the George Lindsey Film Festival in Florence, Alabama in 1998. 

            While I was making coffee there was a knock on the door and it was Benji. I said that Caesar had complained about the heat again and so the landlord had called Benji to tell him to turn it off. I said that if I was cold later I would turn it back on. 

            In the second story Andy thinks that Aunt Bee is overworked. At the same time, British butler on vacation, Malcolm Merriweather returns to Mayberry and Andy hires him to do the work so Bee can relax. Malcolm is perhaps a better cook and housekeeper than Bee, even though she is also very good. After a while Malcolm realizes that Bee is not happy because she has nothing to do. Malcolm pretends to get drunk and makes a mess of the kitchen, then he quits. Andy sees that the sherry was not drank but rather dumped down the sink, but now Bee is happy again. 

            I looked up elderly people and heat and found that Caesar’s behaviour fits a condition that the old are prone to of not being able to handle extreme changes in temperature, especially when it’s an increase. They are supposed to drink a lot of fluids to air condition their bodies so they can handle it. I felt dizzy when I went to bed.