I finished posting my translation of “Betty Jane Rose" by Serge Gainsbourg and sang along once to his song “Mister Iceberg". I'll start memorizing it tomorrow.
Four songs into song practice while playing “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” my B string broke. I found a replacement but I had to loosen all of my strings so I could reach inside and push the B string peg out. While they were all still loose I took the opportunity to wipe up years of dust that had accumulated on my Epi. It took quite a while to get all of the strings back in tune and so after I finished “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” I shortened my rehearsal to just one verse and chorus for each song.
I weighed 88.2 kilos before breakfast.
In the late morning I had my eighth session of scrubbing the inside of my oven door. By lunchtime I had the black, caked in grease on the window down to a 8x11.5x15 cm triangle in the corner. I would be very surprised if I don't have it finished on Sunday since I cleaned an area twice the size of what is left today.
I weighed 88.4 kilos before lunch. I had kettle chips, salsa and yogourt and a glass of orange juice. I took a bike ride in the afternoon.
I saw two young women in different places walking with their belly buttons exposed in 9 degree temperature. Was it international midriff day too or were they just helping out by providing fantasies for International Masturbation Day? I rode to Yonge and Bloor.
I weighed 88.5 kilos after my bike ride.
I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug".
I deleted one of the lightning clips from my combination lightning and snake video. Movie Maker keeps freezing but I got enough done to move on to trying to make a movie of electrical cords behaving as snakes. I charged the battery for the Nikon Coolpix camera so I can use it to shoot the video. I dug out all of my electrical cords from under the sink plus the electric jig saw. I figure that I might be able to attach something where the blade goes and bury the saw under the cords to make the pile vibrate for the camera. I started unravelling some other cords from a drawer in the living room because some of them are big enough to also put in the pile with the electrical cords.
I had a small potato with the rest of the roast beef and some gravy while watching the last two episodes of the fifth season of Andy Griffith. Neither of these stories had Don Knotts playing Barney Fife and although this was the last season featuring Barney, they didn’t give him any kind of send-off. Both stories involved the carnival visiting Mayberry.
In the first story there was a crooked shooting gallery in which the two crooks behind the counter bend the sights of most of the guns but keep one good gun to hold people's interest. They decide to bring out the good gun when Opie steps up and he wins a pelican ornament. Opie is trying to get a good present for his father for his birthday and has $3 of saved up allowance. He decides that since he did so well the first time that he will try to win a razor for Andy at the shooting gallery. But now they give him the crooked gun and he loses all the money for his father’s present. When Opie goes to Goober at the filling station to ask him for a job he can't help him. But when Goober learns about the shooting gallery he says he’ll win the razor because cars and guns are the things he knows. But Goober loses as well and goes to talk to Andy about it. In doing so he lets it slip that Opie lost his money at the shooting gallery. Andy tells Goober to bring Opie to the shooting gallery later. Andy takes Helen to the carnival and they observe the shooting gallery. Andy sees that there is only one good gun and the other guns shoot to the left or right. Andy steps up and adjusts for the bent sight, hitting every duck. He starts to clean the crooks out of all their prizes. When the crooks say they are closing Andy shows them his badge and tells them they aren’t. He takes out the good gun and orders them to give it to a little boy to shoot when he arrives. Opie comes and wins the razor for his father.
In the second story there is a show at the carnival called The Sultan’s Favourite. Clara Bedlow and Miss Roundtree are shown leaving it in disgust and they go directly to Andy to complain. Clara says it’s a "gootchy hootchy" dance but Floyd says it's both cultural and educational and he's seen it six times. Andy goes to check it out and it features a dancer imitating the Middle Eastern stereotype of a harem dancer while a guy dressed as a sultan and wearing a turban plays the banjo and the kazoo. There is nothing risqué about the performance other than that Flossie the dancer gyrates her hips to an extreme degree while wearing a harem costume. Andy tells the manager that the town ladies have complained and asks him to get Flossie to tone her act down. The manager refuses because that’s what draws the men in and so he chooses instead to move on to Charlotte. But he tells the "sultan" Jerry that he can't afford to take him along and he doesn’t even pay him for the work he’s done already. Later when Jerry is leaving he trips over Andy and when Andy learns Jerry has lost his job he feels somewhat responsible and offers him the cot in the back room of the courthouse. He also invites him to his house for dinner where Aunt Bee learns that Jerry is the son of an old friend of hers. She begs Andy to give Jerry a job. Andy gives Jerry a job sweeping up at the courthouse but Jerry has always wanted to be a deputy and when Andy is out he puts on the spare uniform in the back and goes to patrol the carnival. When Jerry tries to break up a fight he is ineffectual and almost gets himself beaten up. Andy gives him another chance as a school crossing guard but he screws that up as well and a little girl has to help him out from the middle of the street. When Andy tells Jerry it isn’t going to work, Bee comes in to tell Andy she's just had her purse snatched at the carnival. Jerry knows who did it and goes to confront the thieves. As he is dodging punches Andy shows up to save him and arrest the bad guys but Jerry is painted as a hero. Jerry has a thing where he always forgets the subject of the sentence he is speaking and someone else has to finish it. Such as, “I said to myself … ahh ... ahhh..." "Jerry?" "Yeah.”
Jerry was played by Jerry Van Dyke, who was as most people know the younger brother of Dick Van Dyke. Jerry started out as a banjo playing comedian working as an opening act in strip clubs and then later in Vegas, Lake Tahoe and Atlantic City. He became better known after a couple of appearances on Ed Sullivan. His first acting role was on The Dick Van Dyke Show as Rob Petrie's brother Stacey. He turned down the titular role on Gilligan’s Island and chose instead the failed sitcom My Mother the Car. He also turned down the chance to replace Don Knotts on The Andy Griffith Show. He finally achieved stardom on the sitcom “Coach,”
Flossie was played by Sylvia Lewis, who started out as a child performer in the final days of Vaudeville. She became a scholarship student at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She acted and danced in Singin in the Rain and Drums of Tahiti. She became a regular on “Where’s Raymond?" She did the choreography for several popular TV shows. She worked for fifty years on screen and stage and is still alive at the age of 90.
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