Rockne Tarkington

            On Saturday morning I memorized the second verse of "J'ai des locataires" (I Am A Landlord) by Serge Gainsbourg and adjusted my translation.

            I weighed 88.4 kilos before breakfast.

            I washed a pair of socks and a pair of shorts and put them out on the deck. I figure if I'm getting the shot on Monday I might as well wear clean clothes because someone is going to be close to me to the point of penetration. 

            In the late morning I took a bike ride. In the Annex a store has a sign that reads, "Computer Sell Computer." That eliminates the middle man. I rode to Yonge and Bloor and as I was coming back along Queen and climbing the hill from under the railroad tracks, some asshole in a car passed shouting, "Pedal, pedal, pedal!" 

            I stopped at home for a pee and a glass of water before heading out to the supermarket. No Frills had cherries, so I got seven bags. I also bought two year old Canadian cheddar, cheap old cheddar, ground beef, orange juice and kettle chips. The beautiful African Canadian cashier with the weaponized eyelashes looked concerned after tallying up the cherries and made a point of making sure I understood that they totalled $41. I thanked her and said it was okay. 

            I weighed 88.3 kilos before lunch. I had a toasted Montreal style bagel with cream cheese, five year old cheddar and sliced tomato with a glass of lemonade. 

            I weighed 88.7 kilos at 18:15. 

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

            I worked on my Movie Maker project of making a video of my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy". I synchronized the audio of the first chord change of Am G Am in the studio recording with the first one of the concert video. That change is only shown three times before the vocal in the concert video but it happens several times in the studio, so I have to decide which two more times I want to match them. Maybe I'll insert a few more clips of the animated electrical cords, synchronize the clip of another Am G Am chord change in the middle, add some more cord clips and then match the final Am G Am change of both studio and concert before the vocal. 

            I edited a bit more of the photo of me from Halloween in 1987. There's just a small section on the left side of my face I want to fix but I have to be careful not to screw it up. 

            I heated six mini quiches and four samosas for dinner and had them with a beer while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. In the first story the Taylors' milk man Walt Simpson has delivered milk with a wagon pulled by his horse Dolly for many years. But now the company is forcing Walt to drive a truck and to retire Dolly. Walt just happens to own a farm and so he's bought Dolly from the company so they'll still be together. But Walt has to go away for a week and so he hires Opie to come by once a day and feed Dolly her oats. But Dolly won't eat and after three days he becomes so worried that he involves Andy and Aunt Bee. The vet is called in but he can find nothing wrong. It is concluded that she simply misses Walt, but when he returns she still won't eat. Finally Opie figures it out that Dolly is off her oats because she is depressed about not being able to work. Walt finds a solution by having Dolly follow the delivery truck while he makes his rounds. 

            In the second story Opie wants to take piano lessons from Clara Edwards. But Andy warns him that if he starts something he's got to keep it up. After the first day however Opie learns that a football star from the New York Giants named Flip Conroy has returned to Mayberry and is going to coach the local team. Opie is the quarterback and Flip insists on him being on time but his piano practice interferes. Opie's friend Arnold offers to take Opie's place at the piano so that Aunt Bee can hear him practising while Opie plays football. But Andy walks in while Arnold is playing and he forces Opie to focus on the piano. But when Flip hears about the conflict he comes to see Andy and sits down at the piano to show him with his own accomplished playing that both football and piano can be practiced without sacrificing either. 

            Flip was played by Rockne Tarkington, who was the first black actor to have a speaking part on The Andy Griffith Show. He had a recurring role on the TV series "Daktari" and "Tarzan" in the 60s. He co-starred in the Danger Island segment of The Banana Splits. He played Too Mean Malone on Matt Houston. He co-starred in the film "No Mercy Man" and starred in "Black Samson." He was the original choice to play Williams in "Enter The Dragon." He was married to Joan Blackman for two years and two children. He converted to Mormonism, which has 3% black membership in the United States. 

            It's very odd that it took eight years for there to be a black person in stories centred in a southern town like Mayberry. I think in the second or third season there was one black woman in a crowd scene. But to be fair, since most people agree that Mayberry is based on Mount Airy, North Carolina, I see that even now Mount Airy only has an 8.2% black population. If Mayberry is supposed to be in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains it is not a cotton region and so there wouldn't be a lot of descendants of slaves living there. But over the nine years of the series there must have been a hundred speaking parts and so there should have been at least eight black actors on the show.