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.