Alberta Nelson

            On Sunday morning I published my translation of “Calypso Blues" by Boris Vian on Christian's Translations. I still have to post it on my Boris Vian Facebook page. 

            I worked out the chords for the first two verses and the chorus of “Aux armes et caetera” (To Arms Etcetera" by Serge Gainsbourg. Everyone who's posted the chords for this song say it's just F and C but I hear a G in there and an F7. By this time Gainsbourg’s voice was so shot from chain smoking that he basically talks, so it’s hard to figure out what notes he’s trying to sing, but I’m pretty sure his voice goes down on this song further than a C. 

            I weighed 90 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I tackled cleaning my oven for the third time. I went through five buckets of water and detergent. After the second bucket the water was no longer black but only brown, but still there is a lot of black, caked in grease to clean. But I’ve made progress again. The island of black at the bottom in the back is breaking up. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos before lunch. I had a tomato and five year old cheddar sandwich on a Montreal style bagel with a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. I weighed 89.5 kilos when I got back. 

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

            I converted six more files from MOV to MP4 before Cloudconvert said I was past my daily limit. I had thought the limit was based on the number of files, but the first time I did ten, the second time five and this time six, so maybe it’s by minutes. I spent about two hours each time. I have six files left to convert and the last one is the biggest. I guess I’ll import the six files to Movie Maker to edit on Monday and then on Tuesday I’ll try to finish converting the rest. 

            For dinner I made naan pizza with salsa, french fries and cheap old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching Andy Griffith. Both of these episodes featured the return of Barney Fife. 

            In the first story there is a Mayberry High School reunion coming up and Barney returns. We learn that he’s been living in Raleigh and he’s in charge of a certain alphabetized section of fingerprint files but we are not told which organization he is working for. He pretends to be indifferent but he keeps asking if Thelma Lou will be coming to the reunion. She apparently left Mayberry a couple of months after Barney. When he learns that Thelma Lou is coming after all he is very excited. The night of the reunion there is a magic moment when Thelma Lou arrives and Barney comes up to dance with her. Then the reunion organizer takes Thelma Lou away to register her. When next she walks in she is leading a handsome young man whom she introduces as her husband. They’ve been married for six weeks. Barney is devastated and starts getting drunk on the punch until Andy informs him it contains no alcohol. Suddenly Barney is approached by an attractive former classmate named Nettie Albright who reveals that he was always her hero in high school. They dance and suddenly Thelma Lou is forgotten. Nettie doesn't live far from Raleigh and so it looks like Barney will look her up. 

            Nettie was played by Alberta Nelson, who was a beach movie mainstay in the 1950s, often playing a tough gang member. She is the only actor to have appeared in all seven of William Asher's Beach Party films. Her character was a leather wearing biker chick named Puss. 

            One of Barney’s old teachers was played by Edna Holland, who acted mostly on Broadway but appeared in a few silent films before 1920, such as "Always in the Way", "Feud Girl”, "Mary Moreland" and "The Masked Rider." 

            In the second story Andy wants Barney to come down to the courthouse to meet his new deputy Warren. Barney makes excuses that he has to get back to Raleigh but he really doesn’t want to meet the man who replaced him, especially since her hears he’s doing a very good job. But the fuel pump on his car needs to be fixed and Goober says it will take an hour and so Barney can’t avoid meeting Warren. Once Barney meets him and finds out that he is Warren’s hero he is in less of a hurry to leave. But then Barney learns that an escaped convict named Avery Noonan who Barney had put in prison is headed in the direction of Mayberry. All he ever talked about in prison was getting revenge on Barney Fife. Barney wants to get out of town as soon as he can but the fuel pump falls out of his car and so he gets dragged to a warehouse where Avery is holed up. Sensing Barney's fear Andy tells him to wait by the car. As Andy and Warren go in Warren has doubts about his hero. Barney swallows his fear and goes in and comes face to face with Avery and drops his gun. Andy is above and knocks Avery out with a bag of flour, then just like old times he covers for Barney, making it look like Barney took out Avery all by himself.