Joe Turkel

            On Sunday morning I worked out the chords for most of the first verse of "O Canada." All the verses should be the same but I may want to put in some instrumental parts. 

            I weighed 90.5 kilos before breakfast. It must have been the meat and cheese pizza I'd had the night before that knocked up my weight. 

            In the late morning I put a chair out on the roof in the sun and took the two remaining broken off parts of my planter, the tube of construction glue, a cloth and some paper towel outside. When I glued the first two pieces it was indoors and it gave me a bit of a headache so I thought I'd play it safe and do it in the fresh air. I glued the two pieces and held them together but the small piece fell off a few times when I shifted position to wipe up the excess glue. I pressed it for fifteen minutes and it stayed in place.

            Next I took the image of the letter "om"that I made from the photo of the number three on my door. I taped it to a board and used an exacto knife to cut the stencil that I plan to use to spray paint the image on my door. I worked very slowly because I didn't want to make a mistake. It took me about 45 minutes to make a hole in the paper that's the shape of "om. Tomorrow I plan on gluing the rim back onto my planter and then spray painting the symbol on my door. First though I'll have to remove the screwed in number three and then wash the door a bit. I see from YouTube that I need to buy a spray adhesive for the back of the stencil so it will stay down firmly on all sides and the spray paint goes on without bleeding underneath. 

            I weighed 90 kilos before lunch. I had a toasted Montreal style bagel topped with cream cheese, five year old cheddar and sliced tomato, with a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. There were lots of people out, none of them were social distancing and a lot fewer were wearing masks. I weighed 89.7 kilos when I got back.

            I talked briefly with Benji in the hall. He joked about going out to get a tan. I said I thought dark skinned people can sunburn and he said not in Canada. He said back in Guyana he could get a sunburn between 11:00 and 13:00 but the sun is too slanted in Canada. 

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

            I edited the music video I'm making of my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy" so that now the concert video and the studio audio are back in sync at the beginning of the vocal. I had inserted another video I'd made of lightning, snakes and animated electrical cords into the beginning and that threw them out of sync by about 38 seconds. I deleted parts of the video that don't fit with the audio. Next I have to add some more clips of the cords I animated before the vocal and that will throw it out of sync again for a while until I remove some more of the unnecessary parts of the concert video. 

            I worked some more on colourizing the bricks in a the background of the skateboarder I photographed in the 80s. 

            I heated four samosas and four mini quiches and had them with a beer while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

            In the first story two bank robbers are on the loose and in the Mayberry area. Andy is trying to help the state police to track them down. Meanwhile Howard Sprague is hanging around and Otis staggers in for his weekly stay holding a bottle. Andy takes his bottle away and puts him in a cell. In the morning when Otis is sober he says he thinks the crooks might be holed up in the old Carson shack because he went up there to find some booze he'd been hiding and he saw strangers with rifles. Andy goes up there but while approaching the cabin he trips over Otis's stash and is captured. When Andy doesn't come back Otis and Howard get worried and decide to go looking for him. Howard goes to get his car while Otis prepares to load the rifles. But while looking for bullets Otis finds his bottle and so when Howard comes back Otis is drunk. Since Otis is the only one who knows where the Carson shack is he has to come along but when they get there Howard makes him wait in the car. Meanwhile at the cabin one of the robbers goes out to chop firewood and Andy gets free to capture the other. But when Andy tries to escape he trips over Howard and they are both captured. They are ties in chairs with the window behind them. Otis shows up at the window and then loses consciousness. Andy and Howard ask for glasses of water and secretly throw them at Otis. Finally he wakes up and stumbles around. One of the crooks goes out to check on the noise and Otis hits him over the head with his bottle. Andy gets free and captures the other one. 

            The crook named Fred was played by Joe Turkel, who played the ghost bartender in The Shining and Dr Tyrell, the inventor of the replicants in Blade Runner. 

            The robber named Larry was played by Charles Dierkop, who played Detective Pete Royster on Policewoman. 

            This was the last appearance of Hal Smith as Otis. 

            In the second story Andy, Helen, Floyd, Howard and Goober are all taking an adult education course in US history. Goober has things to say on the matter but whenever he tries to speak he becomes tongue tied. He decides it's not for him and takes a three week hunting trip. He forgets to take his razor and comes back with a beard. Everyone comments that he looks like an intellectual. Floyd refuses top shave it off because it's too beautiful, but he trims it, which heightens the appearance of intelligence. Goober begins to dominate the history class and starts to drive his friends nuts by always wanting to elaborate on some thought he has. Finally Andy blows up at him and tells him a beard doesn't make him smarter. Goober shaves it off and in history class he finds a balance between speaking opinions and knowing it all. 

            Edna, one of the adult students, was played by Christine Burke, who starred in The Capital Hill Girls. She helped to save the Moreton Bay fig trees in Santa Monica.