Howard Hesseman

            On Friday morning it was ten days since I found the bedbug that I probably brought home from the Vina Pharmacy after my covid shot. I still hadn't seen another but I dreamed of seeing baby bedbugs on my bed. At least I hope it was a dream. I'm very worried but I would normally have seen them by now if I had them. I can't find any in the places where they used to hide. There are two red marks on my neck, one on my collar bone and another on my shoulder that could be bedbug bites. If they are bites I hope they are flea bites. But I haven't smelled them which I would if I had them.I did find a dead centipede or some other kind of multi legged thing under my pillow. 

            My shoulder still bothered me and made some yoga poses difficult. 

            This morning I finished posting my translation of "Des laids des laids" (In the Ugly a Glee) by Serge Gainsbourg and memorized the first two verses of his "Brigade des stups" (Drug Squad).

            I had my first song practice with my repaired Washburn. When it goes out of tune it's still the B string but not by much so far. For the first half of my rehearsal it went out a bit every second song but in the second half it stayed in tune much longer. This is the first time I've played this guitar for a few months and I find I'm not used to playing it. My left hand goes to make chords where it did with the electric and I fumble and go to the wrong fret. It's so far staying in tune enough for me to do some video recording but I think I need to practice for a few days until I'm comfortable with the guitar again.

            I weighed 89.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            My semen seemed reddish this morning. According to medical websites that's only something to be concerned about if it happens often. This was a first. 

            In the late morning I tackled cleaning my oven again, this time without using baking soda. I got better results from just using a metal scraper. Most of the black stuff is on the left wall along the front edge but I got off quite a bit. There was a lot of grease on the light bulb. 

            I weighed 88.7 kilos before lunch. 

            It rained all morning and it was still precipitous when I laid down for a siesta. I like to sleep on my left side but because of my sore shoulder I have to face the other way. When I woke up the sun was out so I was able to take a bike ride. I rode to Yonge and Bloor and miraculously the grinding sound when I pedal has disappeared. I wonder if my bike has gained the ability to heal itself. But if it could do that then I'd probably have to start feeding it and I don't know what it would eat and through what orifice? I weighed 88.8 kilos after my bike ride. 

            I washed a pair of shorts to dry on the deck because the ones I'm wearing are getting ripe. 

            I worked on my poem series "My Blood In A Bug." 

            I cut out some more sections of the video of the dancing cords that I inserted into my main video project for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy." I removed the parts where my naked hand comes in to adjust the cords. I just want the part where my leather gloved hand moves in to pluck a cord and pull it out of the place where it's been dancing with the other cords. Next I'll cut out all the parts where the cord is stretched above the frame. The audio file of the studio recording of "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy" sounds choppy in some parts of the Movie Maker timeline. The original file is fine and so I removed the audio track and re-imported it but it's still choppy in the same place. I think it will come out clean when I publish the movie but it's inconvenient for it to behave that way during the editing process. 

            I colourized a few more bricks in my skateboarder photo. I have 38 bricks to go and then I have some other things to do with the picture. 

            I finished digitally repairing my set of photos from the fall of 1987 and started posting them on Facebook in an album I call "Bedouin Eyes." 

            I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. 

            The first story features a final return of Barney Fife in the series. Barney is still a detective at the Raleigh Police Station but seems to be back to being used as an errand boy. The chief and the other detectives have been asked by the government to find a small town in North Carolina for a summit meeting between a US representative and a Russian representative. The Russian rep has just finished a cruise in Florida and the US rep is in Washington and so the government wants a place in between for them to meet. The chief decides on Mayberry and since Barney is from there he tells him to find a mansion in which the meeting can take place and where the participants can stay. Barney thinks he can get the McCabe mansion and tells the chief to send the participants down but then McCabe tells Barney and Andy to get off his property. Barney tries to call the chief but he and the participants are on their way. Barney begs Andy to let them do it at his house. The Russian representative is at first dissatisfied with Andy's little house and the chief says he's going to kill Barney. The US and Russian reps have their first meeting and go to bed with no results. They all get up in the middle of the night looking for a snack. Bee hears them and serves them a big meal in the kitchen. They are all getting along so well that they finish their meeting right there and go away happy. Barney is praised for setting it all up. 

            In the second story Bee is thinking of trading in her car for a new one and so she, Andy and Opie are going to the auto show in Raleigh. Goober asks if he can come along. In Raleigh Goober looks up his old friend Roy Swanson from trade school and the army. This is the first we learn about Goober having been in the military. Goober wants to see Roy to show off the fact that he now owns his own gas station. But when he meets Roy he finds out that he's the senior vice president of engineering at Amalgamated Motors. Goober is suddenly intimidated and to save face lies that he owns a chain of gas stations. Roy wants to take Goober and his friends out to dinner but Goober, still trying to impress, insists on taking everyone out to the most expensive place in Raleigh. During dinner Opie lets it slip that Goober only has one gas station and Roy rubs it in. On the way back to Mayberry they stop for gas and Andy goes to get a pop. In the grease pit he sees Roy working. He shows Goober but Goober doesn't want to embarrass Roy so he says nothing. 

            This idea of the successful old friend or relative that turns out only to be pretending is one of ther most common TV tropes and it was used before on The Andy Griffith Show. 

            When Goober and Roy sit down earlier at a lunch counter at the auto show the man who serves them is played by a young Howard Hesseman, who would later become a star as Johnny Fever on WKRP In Cincinnatti. He started out as a radio DJ. He was a friend and sometimes lover of Janis Joplin. He was a member of the improv group the committee, which performed regularly on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. After WKRP he co-starred on One Day at a Time and later played a teacher on Head of the Class.