Jack Burns

            On Monday morning I worked out the chords for the verses and choruses of “Mister Iceberg” by Serge Gainsbourg. I just have to place them properly above the text and work out the chords for the instrumental breaks. 

            I saw one squirrel cross Queen Street on the wire in front of my window that has the new cover in two places above the outside of the streetcar tracks. It was slippery but it made it. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos before breakfast. In the late morning I was going to return to sanding the old exit door in my bedroom but I discovered that I was out of sandpaper. I guess I could have popped over to the hardware store to get some more but we’re still in lockdown because of the pandemic and curbside pickup is such a hassle. 

           Instead I took an initial stab at cleaning my oven for the first time in years. I used a putty knife to sweep up all the loose charred material that has accumulated at the bottom for the last few years. I used the same tool to scrape the surface stuff on the bottom and sides that came off easily. I made a pile in the middle of the bottom and used the same tool to shovel it all into a bag. I put hot soapy water into a bucket and used a cloth to pick up the loose stuff that the scraper couldn’t grab plus some of the surface grease. It took two minutes for the water to become black. I dumped it down the toilet and started again, this time with soapy water and steel wool. It took five minutes this time for the water to get black. By this time it was almost 12:30 so I considered it a good start and quit for the day. It probably won’t take as long to clean the oven than it did to clean the oven window because the glass compelled me to get the whole surface clear. With the oven there's a lot of places that won't be visible. 

            I weighed 89 kilos before lunch. I had kettle chips with salsa and yogourt plus a glass of orange juice. 

            I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. I weighed 89.2 kilos when I came back but I was wearing my cargo pants instead of my lighter sweat pants as usual.

            A little after 18:00 I knocked on Shankar's door to make sure he was all right with me making noise in the hallway. Both he and Benji were very interested in the movie I was making and they hung around in the hall the whole time I was setting up and shooting. I decided not to put the bundle of cords on the lazy susan but just right on the floor. I set the saw with the salad fork attached underneath the pile. I got the stepladder and removed the closest fluorescent tube, then moved the ladder to the other light. I set up the Nikon on the tripod and set it to record, then I turned on the saw, climbed on the ladder and made the light flicker. 

           Somehow the Nikon’s battery ran down almost right away, which was strange because I’d just charged it a couple of days before. I had to just use my Kodak in video mode while pressing the button. I put both lights back on and just did close ups. At one point the salad fork became detached from the saw so I had to re-clamp it and screw it tight. I think the close ups worked better. I had to keep readjusting the pile of cords so they were on top of the source of vibration but for brief moments some of the cords really did behave like snakes sliding over other snakes. I think I shot for a good half an hour and then decided I had enough to look at on the computer and see if there’s more that needs to be done and if so how to do it better. I uploaded the camera contents to my computer and looked at some of the videos. There’s some of the motion I want to see but the images are not as clear as I would have liked. 

            I roasted a corned beef brisket and had a slice for dinner with a potato and gravy while watching Andy Griffith. 

            In the first story, which is the sixth episode of season six, Andy finally has a new deputy. But deputy Warren Ferguson is even more obsessed with carrying out the letter of the law than Barney was, he’s just not as funny while doing so. He arrests the entire Ladies Auxiliary, including Aunt Bee because giving out prizes for a bingo game is technically gambling. Andy tries to reason with him but he insists on upholding the law. Andy wants to get it over with and so he finds all the ladies guilty and then gives them all suspended sentences. At first the ladies are satisfied with that but Bee reminds them that they were found guilty without offering a plea and the fact that they were found guilty gives them a record. They demand to have the charges dropped or to have a trial by jury. But only the arresting officer can drop the charges and Warren refuses. Andy leaves in anger. That evening the husbands and children of all the women in jail come to Andy’s place for dinner because they have no one to feed them and they consider it to be his fault. Andy goes back to the courthouse and tells Warren that the ladies are going to require a trial by jury and he thinks they have a good chance of winning. Warren says they don’t. Andy bets Warren a dollar and Warren accepts but as soon as they shake hands Andy arrests Warren for gambling. Warren drops the ladies’ charges. 

            In the second story the audience learns that Warren is Floyd the barber’s nephew. Warren is convinced that he has ESP. He predicts that Floyd is going to give Otis a shave and so when Otis is staggering past the barber shop Floyd goes out and gets him and brings him in for a shave. When Andy challenges Warren’s abilities Warren suggests that he leave while Andy, Floyd and Goober pick an object in the shop. They pick the table and when Warren returns he says it was the mirror. When Andy tells him it was the table Warren says he was right because he can see the reflection of the table in the mirror. Andy and Helen are planning a picnic by the lake but Warren has a vision that something horrible will happen though doesn’t know what and tries to stop them from going. Warren follows them out to the lake and when he sees them getting into a canoe he thinks that is the danger he saw. In trying to stop Andy from going out on the lake he tips their canoe and causes Andy to get a broken wrist. Warren then claims that that he was right even though he was the cause of the problem. 

            Warren was played by Jack Burns, who started out as an early member of Second City in Chicago. He was later part of a comedy team with George Carlin from 1959 to 1962, and later with Avery Schreiber. He was the head writer for the first season of the Muppet Show and later of Hee Haw. He was the voice of Sid the Squid on Animaniacs. He lasted only eleven episodes on Andy Griffith because he just couldn't compare to Don Knotts in that kind of role. After that Andy never had a permanent deputy.