James Westerfield

            On Friday I woke up a little after 3:00 because I had to pee and planned on getting up to go to the toilet and then to look for bedbugs during their rush hour. But I fell back to sleep and didn't wake up until just before 5:00 when the alarm would soon go off. But my ability to sleep suggests that no bedbugs were crawling on me this time because I usually feel it. 

            I finished memorizing "Le java des chaussettes à clous" (The Dance of the Studded Stockings) by Boris Vian. I spent an extra four minutes on it because I hadn't quite nailed it down during the second run through but I was so close that I wanted to finish it, so I went through it a third time and got it. 

            I worked out the chords for the first verse of "Manu Manuréva" by Serge Gainsbourg and the first note of the transition to the second verse. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning after doing a full shave and showering I didn't have as much time as I'd planned to work on my bedroom project of cutting two small pieces of a spare piece of floor board to fill the gaps in the bedroom floor. I managed to cut the length that I wanted with my hack saw out on the deck, but it took a long time. I still have that jigsaw that I found but it didn't seem worth going to the hardware store and looking for a blade for it just to cut a little piece of wood. The floor board that I cut is from the kitchen and those slats are wider than in the bed and living rooms, so I took a razor knife and started shaving off one side. I think its narrow enough now but it still won't fit because there's an edge of another floor board sticking out in the hole. Maybe because that edge inserted into and linked with the missing board. I think that rather than shave any more off my piece I'll take the blade to that edge to widen the hole. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos before lunch. I had kettle chips, salsa and yogourt with a glass of orange juice. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. On the Bloor bike lane a skinny woman riding a bike with a child seat on the back shot past me. She was riding so hard with such intent that it made me wonder if the child had fallen off a long ways back and that she hadn't noticed. Or maybe she was on her way to desperately pick up the child to fill the seat before the custodial parent and that if she was successful we would get an Amber Alert on our phones in the wee hours of the morning. I got past her a couple of times and finally again just before I turned south on Yonge. 

            Just south of College in the narrow construction corridor that runs for half a block, a trail of broken glass led to a discarded blonde wig. 

            On Queen just before Strachan there's another narrowing and usually a lot of cars but someone usually lets me slip ahead when I signal. But this time the driver didn't let me in and so I had to ride ahead in the narrow gap between the track and the cones until I could find a space to ride between the tracks. 

            I weighed 88.3 kilos when I got home.

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

            In my video project for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy" I synchronized the concert footage and the studio audio for the line, "We're wearing white and we're feeling clean." It's also in synch while I'm repeatedly downstrumming one chord over and over leading up to me shouting, "for shock therapy" but there's more of a pause in the concert video and so "shock therapy" is not in sync. So I need to insert some other video briefly into that pause. I'd previously bookmarked a YouTube video of footage from the 1940s of someone getting shock therapy and of the moment when the patient first receives the shock and violently jerks upwards. In the studio I told the bass player to slide up to a high note just before I sang "shock therapy"and so maybe I could synchronize the jerking up of the patient with that part. We'll see how it looks. 

            I grilled five steaks in the oven, small but thicker than the ones I just finished eating yesterday. I had one with a potato and gravy while watching two episodes of "Mayberry RFD." In the first story Mike wants a convertible but he's only thirteen and not old enough to drive. Sam tells him he can save his money to get one and so Mike gets a job after school helping Goober out at the gas station. Sam is proud of Mike for his responsibility and determination and tells him that once he's ready to buy a car he'll put in half the money. Goober has an old convertible that he hasn't been able to to fix and when Mike asks how much he's asking he says $30. At the end of the week Goober pays Mike $15 and Mike says he wants to use it to buy the car and that his father will pay the rest. Sam is surprised to see the car in front of his house and even more shocked that Mike has bought it. When Sam confronts Goober he reassures him that it won't run because it has no battery along with some other problems. Goober tells Sam that Mike can learn a lot just from tinkering with the vehicle. But while Mike is working on it two of his friends come by and challenge Mike to prove the car works. They say he can use the battery from his father's tractor and call him chicken when he says he can't do it. Mike takes the battery and manages to get the car to start. Then they cajole him into proving the car will move and so he does but it turns out that the car has no brakes and it doesn't stop until after it's knocked down Sam's mailbox and gotten stuck across the road halfway in the ditch. In order to punish Mike, Sam asks Goober to give Mike a ticket and the ticket has a long list of violations. But what Sam didn't figure on was the fact that the car is registered in his name because Mike is too young, and so it's Sam that has to go to court. Mike however has learned his lesson and sold the car back to Goober. 

            The second story is another one that was ripped off from an earlier episode of The Andy Griffith Show." Howard and Sam are preparing to take the Junior Woodsmen on their annual hike. Mike and his friends want to explore the Indian Caves but Howard and Sam say they need a guide. Goober says he knows every nook and cranny of those caves and volunteers to be their guide. But once they are inside and exploring a big chamber, Goober wanders off and gets lost. Since they don't know the caves they can't look for him but can only find their way out. The boys are taken home and Sam calls the state police. The search parties can't begin until daylight and so Goober has to spend the night in the cave after his lamp runs out of fuel. When Goober wakes up in the morning he sees daylight and climbs to the exit. He finds a shack where an old hermit lives and who takes him in to feed him. On the old man's TV they see the rescue operation underway to save Goober Pyle. Goober wants to go and show them he's okay but the old man says that's the worst thing he can do. After eating a big meal Goober goes back to the cave exit and goes in to be found by the rescuers. When Millie tries to give Goober a sandwich Sam is suspicious when Goober says, "I couldn't eat another bite" after supposedly having spent 24 hours with no food. 

            The state policeman in charge of the search was played by James Westerfield, who started out in theatre not only as an actor but also as a producer, director and set designer. He won two New York Drama Critics Awards for acting. He played a befuddled cop in several Disney comedies such as "The Shaggy Dog" but is best remembered for his role of Big Mac in "On the Waterfront". He played John Murrel in "The Travels of Jamie McPheeters."

July 31, 1991: In the basement of my building I found a love seat, a Halloween mask and 100 National Geographics

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday I went down to my place in the Beaches. I finished picking up in the living room and swept the kitchen floor. Then I went upstairs in my building to look through what Pat had left behind. I found about fifty tabloid papers, mostly the Star but some Enquirers. I went down to the basement where I found a love seat, a carpet, a chair, clothing, a Halloween mask, a hundred national Geographics and tons of other stuff. Now my apartment was a mess again because of everything I'd brought in, but I was thinking of having a lawn sale. 

            After going back to Nancy's place I called Mike Copping and he was surprised to hear about all the junk that I'd found. 

            Reganne had been staying with Nancy's sister Susan all week and was becoming an honourary Hammermeister.

Turn Me On

            On Thursday morning I woke up at around 3:30 because I had to pee as usual. When I came back from the washroom, before going back to bed I turned on the light to look for bedbugs. Unlike the last two mornings there were none crawling on the wall or on my pillow. I searched under the pillow and bent back the edges of my bed all around. Then I grabbed my trusty skewer stick and began a thorough search of the west and south borders of my bed, poking the sharp end into any cracks and gaps in the baseboards and the wall above. I found none until I got back up to the northwest corner and shoved my little spear into a small cave about ten centimetres above the baseboard and disturbed one bedbug that came out only to be stabbed and to spill my blood for three centimetres down the wall. It was probably in there laying eggs and so I'm going to try to steam the area later and then cover it up. I'm discouraged that I found another bedbug but encouraged that there was only one and that I had to track it down. When the previous infestation began seven years ago I was finding twenty every time I looked but since July 27 I've found five. I'm thinking that washing the pillow yesterday might have killed most of the ones I have. Speaking of the pillow it still isn't dry and it's raining so I can't put it out in the sun. 

            I weighed 89.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            I worked out the chords to the instrumental intro and the first two lines of "Manu Manuréva" by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            In the late morning I tried an experiment by filling the kettle and bringing it to a boil. I quickly brought it into the bedroom and used my hand held hairdryer at its hottest to blow the steam into the hole where I found the bedbug this morning in hopes that the steam would kill any eggs the bug might have laid. It's hard to know if it worked because when I'm blowing the steam I can't see it. I also tried just putting the hairdryer up close to the holes in the wall and baseboards. The wall got pretty hot and bedbugs aren't supposed to like heat so hopefully it did something. I looked it up and one website says that a blowdryer will draw bugs out of holes but it won't kill them because it doesn't get hot enough. Apparently 93 degrees are required. 

            I looked through my storage drawers for any pieces of flloorboard that I might have kept because there are two small areas in corners of the bedroom where there is some floorboard missing. I found one piece that is just big enough to be cut into one larger piece and one smaller to fill both holes. I measured it off to saw tomorrow and I cleaned both holes with a tooth brush so the wood glue will stick better. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos before lunch. I had kettle chips, salsa and yogourt with a glass of orange juice.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor and on the way home I stopped at Freshco. I bought six bags of grapes, a pack of ground pork, some four year old Canadian cheddar, a bag of kettle chips, Greek yogourt, skyr, salsa, Sunlight detergent and a pack of Sponge Towels. I weighed 88.2 kilos when I got back. 

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

            I inserted the video of my shock machine into the main video I'm making for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy." I put it in just after I sing "Why don't we wait now to warm up the machine" and then I cut out the concert video of me singing "up the machine" because that's where it goes out of sync with the studio recording. Then I cut out all but the two seconds of the "shock machine" video so that it shows only while I'm singing "up the machine." I have the next line where I sing "We're wearing white and we're feeling clean" almost in sync and I'll try to fine tune it tomorrow. 

            I colourized two more damage spots in my photo of the skateboarder. 

            I had a potato with gravy and two small steaks while watching two episodes of Mayberry RFD.

            In the first story there wasn't much of a story. Alice's harp instructor Professor Radetsky begins to see a lot more of Alice other than giving her lessons. To some degree it seems he's just freeloading for meals. He stays for lunch and dinner and then invites her on a picnic for which she is expected to prepare the food. He invites her out to dinner but makes it a double date with Sam and Millie for which Sam ends up picking up the tab. Alice admits that she feels romantic towards Wolfgang and says, "He turns me on." Sam gets a call that Wolfgang wants to have a private conversation with Sam and Alice expects that he's going to ask for permission to marry her. Alice tells Sam she doesn't want to marry Wolfgang and asks him to let the professor down easy. When they meet Wolfgang says he doesn't want to marry Alice and to let her down easy. It ends with Alice playing the harp and singing "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms" with Sam. 

            In the second story Pamela Bennington's car breaks down in Mayberry and so Howard gives her a lift back to Mount Pilot. He sees that she lives in a singles apartment complex with a shared pool and that there is a temporary vacancy because a resident is going on a two month holiday. After Pamela kisses Howard on the cheek to thank him he decides to rent the place. There are a lot of attractive young women there but there is one resident named Jane who is very friendly towards Howard, although he doesn't seem to find her attractive, nor does anyone else. Howard decides to throw a housewarming party and is going to invite Pamela to be his date, but it turns out tht she already has a boyfriend. Howard strikes out with several other women there because he's a clumsy nerd. Finally he reluctantly asks Jane and she enthusiastically accepts. But at the same time Pamela has just had a fight with her boyfriend and begins to flirt with Howard and so he asks her to be his date as well. He invites Goober to come because he wants to push Jane off on him but Goober is late and so at the party Howard tries to find ways to avoid Jane so he can spend time with Pamela. When Goober arrives Howard takes Jane to meet him but then he realizes that he has to do the right thing and be with the girl he invited first. He asks Goober and Pamela to be one another's dates and they enthusiastically agree. Howard spends the rest of the party with Jane. Pamela and Goober have a great time but when he walks her home he runs into her boyfriend and ends up with a black eye. 

            Jane was played by Judith Cassmore, who played Vicki in "Foxy Brown" and had supporting roles on several TV shows and a few on Broadway.

July 30, 1991: One unattractive hooker was asking $60 so I kept looking

Thirty years ago today 

             On Tuesday I went down to the Dufferin Mall to pay my phone bill, then I went to BGM to pick up my contact sheets. After that I took the King car to Roncesvalles and walked back along Queen looking for a hooker. One unattractive one was asking $60 and so I kept going. I caught the car to Sherbourne where one woman wanted $50 for a blow. I walked up Sherbourne and called that transvestite but she wasn't home. I gave up and caught the subway to Eglinton to meet Mike Copping. We went fior a beer at the Duke of Kent and then for coffee at the Second Cup while we played a girl watching game. We met Nancy, her sister Susan, Susan's friend Raganne and the baby at Canada Square Cinemas where we saw "My Father's Glory." Then we went to Fran's where we talked a long while.

Pillow Fight

            On Wednesday at about 3:30 I woke up because I had to pee and so I decided to turn the light on to see if there were any bedbugs hanging around. I saw one small one on the old exit door behind my pillow and it was walking down the door towards the bed. So far, of the four bedbugs I've found since yesterday morning three of them have all been in the same area around my pillow. I did a search before going to the bathroom but I couldn't find where they are hiding. Since they can't be in the mattress because of the bedbug proof cover I suspect they are in the pillow, which does have holes in it. I decided that later in the day I would try to wash it and put it out back to dry, which would mean I would have to use a different pillow for sleeping until tomorrow. 

            I memorized the eighth verse of "Le java des chaussettes à clous" (The Dance of the Studded Stockings) by Boris Vian. There's just one chorus to learn before I look for the chords. 

            I found four sets of chords for "Manu Manuréva" by Serge Gainsbourg in addition to the chords I'd already worked out for another song with the same melody. I'll decide tomorrow which is best. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I washed my pillow in the tub in hot water with a little bleach just in case the pillow is the place where the bedbugs are living. I would have cleaned the pillow with my laundry yesterday but I was afraid of it falling apart in the dryer and making a mess. I also threw in the pillow case I'd already washed yesterday and an old black and white woolen floormat. The problem is that parts of the floormat came off and stuck to the pillow case and so I had to spend extra time rinsing it. I put one of my kitchen chairs out into the full sunlight on the roof and hung the pillow to dry. But I went out on the roof in my bare feet and the surface was like hot coals. I put the rest of the items on the railing of the deck. I also swept and vacuumed the bedroom but didn't get around to vacuuming the futon this time. I'll do that tomorrow and maybe I'll fill up some more cracks as well. 

            I weighed 88.9 kilos before lunch. I had the rest of my wheat thins, some rice crackers, five year old cheddar and a glass of raspberry lemonade. 

            I took a siesta using the pillow that I bought at Walmart a couple of years ago but only used once because I found it too high. I had a pleasant nap with no bedbugs bothering me. 

            I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. Riding downtown is also good exercise for the reflexes because of all the vehicles and other cyclists one has to get past and around. I weighed 88.4 kilos when I got back. 

            I went out on the roof to check my pillow but it was still not fully dry. I guess the bleach had not fully been rinsed in the tub because the pillow's dripping during the day left a white stain on the seat of my old wooden chair. 

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

            I edited a copy of my "Shock Machine 3" video at the end of the timeline for the main video I'm making for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy." I cut it down to just a few seconds when the ambient light is least and the flashing lights in my Martian Bouquet sculpture are more pronounced. Next time I'll insert the clip into the main video just as I'm singing "Why don't we wait now to warm up the machine?" I may insert it about halfway through the line because the concert video is still in sync with the studio audio up to that point. I'll probably insert it after the line is sung and then gradually file off the end of the line until it looks right. 

            I went back out to check on my pillow. The roof was in shadows so I put the pillow on the railing of the deck where there was still sunlight and brought my chair in. What I'd thought to be a white stain must have been just a wet spot because the chair isn't really discoloured much after all. 

            I colourized three more damage spots on my photo of the skateboarder. There are still quite a few but the biggest ones have already been done and so now they don't take as long. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilicata sauce, Italian sausage and extra old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching two episodes of Mayberry RFD. 

            In the first story Martha has always wanted to go to Europe and Emmett has promised it to her throughout their marriage. But now some old friends of their's have made it there and Martha is bugging Emmett about it in overdrive, so much so that he gives in just to stop her from asking. Now it comes down to Emmett trying to get to Europe and back without spending very much money. At a travel agency he drives an agent crazy until he gets a deal for $600 that involves flying to London, crossing the channel to go to Paris and then coming home. Martha says they can't just see two cities and so Emmett says the trip is off. Sam talks Emmett into working out some compromises. If she gives up the Greek islands he'll throw in the Rhine cruise and she agrees to that. But when Emmett says he doesn't want to order wine in French restaurants they argue again and he says she can go alone. Later Emmett tells Sam that it's not so much the money as that he's embarrassed to travel to Europe when he's not a cultured person. Sam assures him they love tourists in Europe and so finally they go. When they return Emmett says it was a life changing experience. Martha seems excited about the fact that she go pinched in Rome. 

            In the second story there is an opening for a new elder at the church and Sam recommends Goober. He hasn't missed a Sunday in seven years and he's always the first to volunteer. Howard is reluctant and says it has to be voted on at the next monthly meeting. Right now Goober is in charge of the c hurch collections and always hides the collection at his gas station before taking it to the bank on Monday. But just as Goober is about to hide the money he gets a call from his cousin Elbert who pretends to cough over the phone and says he needs $100. Goober decides to lend Elbert the church money but when he arrives at the address that Elbert has given him it turns out to be a poker game. Suddenly the place is raided and the cops arrest Goober while Elbert escapes. Sam comes to post Goober's bail but when a reporter who is hanging around the police station hears about Goober having taken church money to a poker game he considers it newsworthy. It appears in the paper and Goober is embarrassed. A meeting of the elders is held and Howard questions Goober until he withdraws his name from consideration and storms out. But then Sam gives everybody hell and reminds them that Goober is the most dedicated member of the church. A vote is taken and all are in favour of Goober being an elder. 

            Elbert was played by Patrick Campbell, who played Lester in "Smokey Bites the Dust" and the undertaker in "Cat Ballou." He made guest appearances on several TV shows. He played the announcer on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the crook Louis the Lard on "Halloween With The Addams Family."

July 29, 1991: At Jilly's I got this very interesting older dancer with short blonde hair, a black corset and long gloves to dance through two songs

Thirty years ago today 

            On Monday I went down to my place and worked on projects: transcribing information from the encyclopaedia, reading, writing, making astrological notes and working on a collage. I managed to clean up a lot more than I did on Saturday. I picked up most of the stuff from the living room floor. 

            After it started raining I caught the streetcar to Broadview and went into Jilly's for a while. I got this very interesting, older dancer with short blonde hair, a black corset and long gloves to dance through two songs. 

    I took the streetcar to Parkdale to pick up my contact sheets from BGM but I was $3 short and so I had to go to the bank machine. But I couldn't get any money because there was a hold on my account. I went back to Nancy's place.

Shock Therapy Machine

            On Tuesday morning just after midnight I was finishing up something on the computer before bed when I felt something on my mouse hand. I looked and saw a bedbug. This was forty nine days after the one I found on June 8 and so I doubted the two bugs were related. This must mean that the bedbug came from another source. I found some books on the street recently but they don't look like they could have carried bedbug eggs. A few days ago my upstairs neighbour left a tripod in a carrying bag hanging on my doorknob. I took it into my place even though I don't need any more tripods and I did put it on the upper shelf in my bedroom. David told me last month that he's seen bedbugs in his place and so it's possible that the bag had bedbugs or eggs in it. It's also possible that the bedbug travelled through the walls from another apartment. 

            I went to bed and at around 2:30 I woke up because I had to pee. I decided to turn the light on and check for bedbugs and sure enough there was one on my pillow and another one crawling up the wall behind the pillow. They were all the same medium size and so that suggests they hatched at the same time. If they're old enough to lay eggs they may have been here for over a month but the place has been treated twice in the last month. After finding the bedbugs I couldn't sleep and so I only got at the most two hours. I was pretty exhausted during song practice. 

            I finished memorizing "Manu Manuréva" by Serge Gainsbourg and looked for the chords. I found one set so far. 

            I called my landlord to tell him he needed to call the exterminator because I'd found three bedbugs. As I expected he immediately started blaming me and saying he only gets these problems from me. I explained that I'm the only one who complains but I'm not the only one with bedbugs. I informed him that my upstairs neighbour David told me last month that he had bedbugs. He said he hadn't been aware of that. I told him that no one wants to say they have bedbugs because they are afraid of being blamed for them. I urged him to hurry up and call Orkin. 

            I weighed 89.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning because of the bedbugs I'd found I had no choice but to do my laundry a week early. In addition to my usual bedding and clothes I took my comforter and the two sets of bedroom curtains. I started removing the cover for my living room futon with the intention of leaving it off until I'm sure the bedbugs are gone, but there were so many cat claw holes underneath in the actual sewed on mattress cover that I decided to keep the outer cover on. All my shorts had to be washed and so I wore long pants for the first time this summer. At first it wasn't so bad because it had been raining but when the sun came out it got pretty hot to have my legs covered. 

            While my clothes were in the dryer I went over to the hardware store to buy poly filla. It was the first time I'd been there since they started allowing customers inside the store again for phase three of opening up from pandemic. I bought a 300 ml container of quick drying spackle. I had time to seal two holes on what used to be the exit door in the bedroom from where the locks used to be. I also filled in some gaps between the baseboard beside the bed and the floor. Since I still have my bedbug proof mattress cover on the bedroom futon, the only places I can think of where the bedbugs would lay eggs would be in the cracks of the baseboard and maybe the pillow. The pests have far fewer options than they did during the previous infestation. I'll fill up some more cracks tomorrow. 

            When I brought my laundry home I put my comforter in a garbage bag to keep in the kitchen until the bedbugs are gone. It's too big and hard to clean to risk keeping it on the bed. 

            I weighed 88.2 kilos before a late lunch of kettle chips, salsa, yogourt and a small steak with a glass of orange juice. 

            I took a siesta an hour later than usual and slept naked as I'll have to do for all my naps until the bedbugs are gone. I didn't notice any more bedbugs than the three I'd found in the early hours of the morning. Tonight will be the test to see if my spackling did any good to hold the bloodsuckers back.

            After posting my blog it was too late to take a bike ride all the way downtown and so I just rode to Ossington and Bloor. I weighed 89.1 kilos when I got back at 17:45. 

            I worked on my poem series "My Blood In A Bug." Hopefully this new influx of bedbugs won't give me too much new material. 

            I watched all of the videos I shot last Friday of the surreal barbaric shock therapy machine that I made by sewing a leather covering over my Roland amp, topping it with my rusted Martian Bouquet sculpture and running electrical cords between the two. The third and final video, which I shot two hours later when dusk was arriving and with the curtains closed, worked best, especially with the red bicycle flashers I placed inside of each mouth of the sculpture. I got some interesting shadow effects on the wall behind the sculpture by shining my reading lamp up towards it and moving it around. It made the shadow of the twisted metal "bouquet" part of the sculpture look like sinister devil's antlers. But the light of the lamp also washes out the red flashing lights that are more effective for my current purposes than the shadow effect. 

           I imported the Shock Machine 3 video into my Movie Maker project of making a video for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy." I placed the new video at the end of the timeline to edit before placing it into the main movie. For now I just need a few seconds of the darkest part of the video where the bloody red flashers are dominant, to appear when I sing, "Why don't we wait now to warm up the machine?" I'll work on that tomorrow. 

            I colourized two more damage spots in my photo of the skateboarder. 

            For dinner I had a potato with gravy and two tiny steaks while watching Mayberry RFD. 

            In the first story Mike has accumulated $35 from odd jobs, allowance and birthday presents and his father strongly suggests that he should give some of it to charity. He gives $10 to the local minister who tells him he'll put it towards a foster children's plan in Hong Kong by which $10 pays for a child's school tuition for a year. A little girl named Kim Lee becomes Mike's foster daughter and they begin to correspond. Since Mike has paid for Kim's education she sends him her report card. Like Mike, Kim's worst marks are in arithmetic but he encourages her to study harder. They become attached to each other through their letters. When Kim learns she is going to be adopted by a couple from the United States named Mr and Mrs Kenworthy and will move to Washington, she is not sure about it and asks for Mike's approval. He feels protective of Kim isn't sure either and so Sam arranges to take Mike on a trip to Washington and to meet Kim and the Kenworthys when they arrive. When Kim meets Mike she says she expected an older father but that it's okay. Mike approves of the Kenworthys and Washington. Mr and Mrs Kenworthy take Sam and Mike to dinner at the Capital Dining Room which is only for congressmen and their guests because it turns out Kim's adoptive father is Congressman Kenworthy.

            Mrs Kenworthy was played by Jean Howell, who played the wife of Jesse James in the movie "Hell's Crossroads", appeared in "Superstar", was in the cast of the show "State Trooper" and co-wrote the screenplay for the original "The Fast and the Furious" from the 1950s. She later became an environmental activist. She was married to Canadian actor Larry Thor. 

            In the second story Sam is at a conference in the big city when he runs into an old friend who now works for NASA. He has custody of some moon rocks that he is displaying in various places and Sam asks him to show them in Mayberry. But he says it's against the rules but he agrees to meet Sam in Mayberry. Sam says since he'll be there anyway he can show his friend Howard a moon rock. He agrees but stresses that no one else can know. Sam calls Howard to tell him but Goober happens to be eavesdropping and so soon the whole town knows. When Sam hears of the leak he cancels the whole thing and says even Howard can't see the rocks now. Everyone in town is upset with Sam and so finally Sam tries to persuade his friend again. While they are talking his friend gets a call from his boss telling him to display the moon rocks at the Mayberry Museum. At the show Sam meets his friend's boss and asks how he was persuaded to bring the rocks to Mayberry. He says the state senator intervened after reading a pleading and crudely written letter from a disappointed little boy named Goober.

July 28, 1991: The converter fell apart and so the TV was stuck on one channel

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday Nancy, her sister Susan, the baby and I went down to the St Lawrence Flea Market. I bought a rock and roll trivia book. We went to a deep dish pizza place called Uno where the portions weren't much but the food was okay. We walked to Union Station and took the subway to Finch and then the Cummer bus back to Nancy's place. 

            We watched "Married With Children" and then the converter fell apart so that the TV was stuck on one channel. 

            Michelle came over to interview Nancy and I.

Alice Nunn

            On Monday morning I memorized the seventh verse of "Le java des chaussettes à clous" (The Dance of the Studded Stockings) by Boris Vian. There's just one verse and chorus to learn before I look for the chords. 

            I finished memorizing most of "Manu Manuréva" by Serge Gainsbourg. There's just one verse to go for that as well. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I finished cleaning the inside of my square baking pan and then scraped the black caked in grease off the top and outside edge of the rim. It'll take at least another session to clean the outside. 

            I weighed 89.8 kilos before lunch. I had kettle chips, salsa and yogourt with a glass of orange juice.

            I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor in the afternoon muggy heat. I weighed 88.9 kilos when I got home. I turned the fan on when I got home for only about the fourth time this summer. 

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

            I imported to the video editor the last video that I'd shot on Friday, flipped it upright and exported it. It took about thirty five minutes. Usually the video editor wants to play me the video after it's done but this time it didn't. When I tried to play the video the green light ran across the top of the video folder and just pulsed after it reached the far right. I tried closing it and playing the video several times but the same thing happened. After a whilewhen I tried it again the video folder didn't even show its contents. I went to shut down in the start menu but nothing came up. Finally I had to go to the task manager and sign out. From the sign in page I shut down and then restarted. After that I was able to play the video. The third video with the lower light looks like the best one for a clip to insert into my "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy Video" but I'll play all three tomorrow to decide for sure. 

            I colourized three more damage spots in my photo of the skateboarder and digitally repaired some more of my photo of the woman with the chicken and the blowtorch. 

            I grilled seven small, thin steaks but didn't keep in mind that steaks that thin wouldn't need to be cooked as long as thicker ones. They weren't burnt but they were a little too well done. I had two with a potato and gravy while watching two episodes of Mayberry RFD. 

            In the first story Howard gets a TV show in which he sits and reads poetry. He calls himself the Dream Spinner and starts getting fan mail. When a female fan sends him a letter of appreciation and a poem he tells Goober and Emmett he might read it on the show. Emmett recites a poem from a chocolate box and Goober one from a comic book but Howard rejects them. Goober and Emmett decide to play a trick on Howard by writing him a mushy fan letter, enclosing a poem from a feed catalogue and getting Edna , the new waitress at the diner to put it in her handwriting and sign it "Melissa." Howard reads the poem and so they send him another letter from Melissa asking him to give her the signal of touching his moustache. Sam knows and disapproves of Goober and Emmett's prank and so when Howard comes to him to tell him he's fallen in love with Melissa he tries to discourage him. Sam goes to Goober and Emmett to tell them what they've done and now they are sorry. They confess to Howard that they are Melissa. Howard is mad at his friends and then gets another letter with the same handwriting. He goes to confront Edna and she reads the letter to him in which she apologizes for her part in the joke. Howard asks Edna out and they begin dating. 

            Edna was played by Maggie Mancuso who played Charlene Darling on The Andy Griffith Show. 

            In the second story Sam learns that Mrs Plunkett, a local egg farmer is selling her business for $1200. After Sam comments that it would be a good investment for someone Millie surprises him by saying she wants to buy it. He tries to politely discourage her but she is determined. It soon becomes apparent that she is a city person and not cut out for farming but when Sam tells her it was a dumb idea she is offended and tries to do it alone. But everything falls apart quite often literally. The chickens aren't laying, the rooster attacks her and she doesn't know how to repair things. When Sam is fixing her gate a man drives up asking if the farm is for sale. Sam suggests he offer Millie $1300 and so she sells the farm at a profit. 

            Mrs Plunkett was played by Alice Nunn, who co-starred in "Camp Runamok", played Mrs Benson on "Petticoat Junction", was a regular on the Tony Orlando and Dawn variety show, played the maid in "Mommie Dearest" and the parole officer in "Who's That Girl". But her most famous role was as the comically frightening ghost Large Marge in "Peewee's Big Adventure."

July 27, 1991: I bought a developing canister and some developer

Thirty years ago today

            Just after midnight on Saturday I called Mike Copping at my place and reminded him to leave me the keys. We talked about getting together to see either "Terminator II" or "My Father's Glory" on Tuesday. I said I would call him at work early in the week. 

            Nancy was out with her sister Susan until 3:00 and so she didn't want to go down to the Beaches with me. We argued about money. There was nothing on TV before I left. 

            I got to my place at around 13:30. The guy came to change the lock at 14:00. I did some reading, made notes and worked on my "Congregation" collage. I did a bit of cleaning but not enough. 

            I went to Henry's on Church Street where I bought a developing canister and some developer.

Patti Cohoon Friedman

            I didn't sleep very well on Sunday morning, perhaps because I'd taken my bike ride before my Saturday afternoon siesta and so had less to be tired from. 

            Later in the morning I memorized the second and third verses of "Manu Manuréva" by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 89.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I scraped most of the black from the inside bottom and two inside sides of my square baking pan. It might take two more sessions to finish it and then I've got two muffin pans to clean. 

            I weighed 89.1 kilos before lunch. I had wheat thins with five year old cheddar and a glass of raspberry lemonade. 

            I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor in the afternoon. It was hot but the heat was smoothed down by the breeze. On my way down Yonge Street at around Gerrard I was stopped at the light behind a woman on a small motorcycle. Over her helmet she had a fuzzy yellow dog's head and behind her was a small terrier wearing a leather cap and a little pair of tinted hippy glasses. When the dog turned its head to look at me it would have made a great photo but I wouldn't have been able to get my camera out before the light changed and I wasn't used to using my phone as a camera. I had to go out onto the tracks a lot to pass slow cyclists and food delivery cyclists on electric bikes who were fast when they knew where they were going but would slow down to check their global positioning systems. I weighed 88.7 kilos when I got home.

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

            I opened the second video that I'd shot on Friday in the Video Editor and flipped it upright. Then I exported it but the process involves reformatting the video from .mov to .mp4 and it took half an hour, so I'll do the last video tomorrow. I suspect that it's the last one that will be the one I want to use for the main video I'm making for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy." The lower light making the red flashers brighter on top of my surreal leather and rust shock therapy machine will probably be a better fit.

            I colourized three more damage spots in my photo of the skateboarder. It's starting to look pretty good but there sure are a lot more spots. 

            I finished digitally repairing a photo from 1991 of a co-worker at Mr Mover and part of another photo from 1987 of a woman blowtorching the feathers off a dead chicken. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilicata sauce, hot Italian sausage and extra old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching two episodes of Mayberry RFD. 

            In the first story Sam, Goober and Howard decide to form a bicycle club but they deliberately don't tell Emmett because they think it would be too strenuous for someone his age. But when Emmett finds out that he's been excluded he is upset and so they apologize and welcome him to the Red Devils. But it turns out they were right as Emmett falls far behind. Emmett however doesn't want to admit that he can't keep up and so he starts hitching rides on trucks that carry him ahead of the others. When they point out he didn't pass they he claims he took a side road. But on the way home they notice Emmett's bike on the back of a truck. They don't mention it to Emmett. Later Howard learns that Emmett sold his bike even though Emmett claims it was stolen. 

            Emmett's age according to the fact that he turned fifty in an episode a couple of years before would not be too much for riding in a bicycle club. But of course the actor Paul Hartman was really in his seventies so maybe they adjusted his character's age without telling us. 

           In the second story Mike's class is given an assignment to make projects on the theme of the old west. Mike builds a tepee that looks okay to me but others, including his father, think is pretty shoddy. Mike's friend Harold says he's building a replica of a fort. Sam goes by Harold's father Brian's workshop and sees that Harold is hardly doing more than applying the glue while all the toolwork and measuring is being done by Brian. Sam gets competitive and decides to help Mike make a better tepee, which expands into a whole scene with a birch bark canoe, a totem pole and a lake. Brian adds flickering lights to his fort. The day of the open house when the blue ribbon is about to be given out, Mike feels sick because he's worried that he will win when he hardly did anything. The teacher Miss Pringle awards the blue ribbon to Susan whose project was simple but obviously worked on entirely by her. Miss Pringle tells Sam that every father goes overboard at least once. 

            Susan was played by Patti Cohoon Friedman who co-starred in the short lived series "The Runaways" and "Apple's Way". Her husband Adam Friedman made a documentary called "Playing Patti" about Patti's child acting career.

July 26, 1991: I bought a tripod for $69.95 and a cable release for my camera

Thirty years ago today

            I got a ride on Friday morning to go to Mr. Mover and pick up my cheques as well as the paycheque for Mike Copping. We got back to Nancy's place at 14:00 and then her sister Susan and I got a ride with her father down to Greenwood and Danforth. From there I took the bus to Queen and that gorgeous model type that lived up the street from me was waiting at the stop. The streetcar took half an hour to arrive. 

            When I got home I made some phone calls, masturbated and then headed out to look for a tripod. I went to Vistek but it was closed and so I travelled to Henry's on Church Street. It took a long time to be served. There were some tripods on sale and I looked at one for $69.95. I decided not to shop around since they only had three left and I also bought a cable release for my camera. 

            I headed back up to Scarborough and called Nancy from Miracle Mart at Bamburgh Plaza. She met me there to shop.

Leonid Kinskey

            On Saturday morning I memorized the first verse of "Manu Manuréva" and was surprised that it's musically the same song and done with the same production as "Adieu California" albeit longer. That explains why "Adieu California" is not on Alain Chamfort's "Manuréva" album. I assume Chamfort and his co-composer worked out the melody before hand and applied them to both sets of Gainsbourg lyrics to see which would fit best. I prefer "Adieu California." But at least the chords are pretty much already worked out. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning, since it was hazy outside and the sun wasn't harsh I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. When I got home I only stopped to pee before heading back out to the supermarket.

            At No Frills the Ontario peaches were back in season so I bought a plastic basket. I also got five bags of grapes, a pint of blueberries, shaving gel, Irish Spring soap, a can of coffee, three bags of milk, a tub of skyr, a jug of orange juice, a jar of mango and lime salsa and a pack of toilet paper. 

            I weighed 88.1 kilos before lunch. I had wheat thins and five year old cheddar with a glass of raspberry lemonade. 

            It was raining hard in the afternoon when I woke up from my siesta. 

            I pulled the couch out and removed a wingnut and a large washer that I'd improvised years ago to hold the right end of the base of the wooden frame to the right end of the back. The part that broke last night was the part that the screw had gone through. I put the couch back against the wall and then sat down in front of it on the floor to push the base with my feet as far back as it would go. It seems to be okay for now with the back propped against the wall. 

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

            I weighed 88.8 kilos at 18:00. 

            I tried to upload the videos that I'd shot yesterday but when I stuck the uploader into the usb port my computer kept asking me to insert a device into the drive. I tried restarting my computer but that didn't work. I tried other ports but got the same message. I started my laptop and finally was able to install the videos there, then I copied them onto my flash drive, which my computer still acknowledges. I copied the files from the flash drive to my computer. But then the videos were on their side because I'd shot them with the camera sideways since that was the best view. I imported the first file into the video editor and flipped it upright, then exported it, which took about twenty minutes. When I tried to import the second video the editor said there wasn't enough memory and that I'd have to restart the app. By this time I'd been working on the problem for two hours and decided to flip the other two videos and export them on Sunday. But then I realized that since I couldn't open the memory card in my PC I couldn't delete the contents in order to shoot any new videos next time, so I inserted the uploader back into my laptop. But the laptop started giving me the same message as the computer until after several tries the files finally appeared and I was able to delete the contents of the memory card. All that work and I still haven't had a chance to look at the videos to determine what few seconds of them would best fit into the main video I'm making for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy." 

            I colourized a couple of damage spots on my photo of the skateboarder. 

            Just before dinner I realized that I'd forgotten to buy beer and so I rushed out and got to the liquor store just in time. I'm lucky to live half a block away. 

            I grilled four hot Italian sausages in the oven and had one between two half pieces of toast topped by ketchup, mustard, sliced pickle and piri piri sauce. I had it with a beer while watching two episodes of Mayberry RFD. 

            In the first story Sam is looking for someone to paint his house. Howard gets the idea to apply the pioneer spirit of barn raising to make painting Sam's house a community effort. He gets Goober and Emmett on board and breaks the news to Sam. Sam has already found a professional who can do the job in a few days but Howard is so insistent and Sam doesn't want to be rude. His three friends show up the next morning and dawdle for at least an hour before finally starting to work. After several hours they've spilled paint where it shouldn't go, gotten paint on the window glass and remixed the paint in the wrong shade so that one side of the house is brown and the other tan. Finally Sam blows up and tells them to go home. Then Sam hires a professional to paint the house properly. The next day Sam is about to go into town and apologize to his friends for getting angry when they all show up to also say they're sorry. But not knowing that the house has been painted over by a professional they take a look and think that they did a pretty good job after all. Sam generously allows his friends to remain blissfully ignorant. 

            In the second story, while looking in an antique shop for something to make into a lamp, Alice finds a harp. She has always loved the harp and now on a whim she gets it. She looks for an instructor and finds the eccentric Professor Radetsky from Europe who believes the harp is the only instrument. He hasn't had a student in three years but gives the impression he is fitting Alice into his busy schedule. But having not had a student for so long he becomes overzealous and frustrates Alice until she wants to give it up. When Sam points out to the professor that Alice wants to quit Radetsky realizes his mistake and asks her to take him on again. This time he is more patient and Alice improves to the point that he wants her to do a recital at the music school at which he is employed. The other students are all children and Alice is embarrassed because an older student is always expected to be better because they look like they should have been practicing for years. The little kid who performed on the violin before Alice encourages her and says, "Don't be chicken! If I can do it you can do it!" She plays "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms" and plays beautifully. 

            This story seems to ignore the fact that Alice is already an accomplished musician as was established when she played trumpet on the episode in which she was introduced.

            Professor Radetsky was played by Leonid Kinskey, who left Russia after the revolution and began to work as an actor in Europe. His first film was "Trouble In Paradise" in 1932 and then he played an agitator in "Duck Soup." Most of his career consisted in playing supporting parts as comedic foreigners, such as Genflou in Les Miserables, the snake charmer in "The Lives of a Bengal Lancer", an Arab in "The Garden of Allah", Ivan in "The Big Broadcast of 1938", and Pierre in "That Night In Rio." He played Rick's bartender in "Casablanca" and claimed he got the part because he was Bogart's drinking buddy. In 1948 he starred in the first television sitcom, "The Spotlite Club." He sang "I'm An Old Cowhand" in "Rhythm of the Range" with Bing Crosby. He was offered a part in "Hogan's Heroes" but he turned it down because he found it implausible. He said Nazis were seldom dumb and never funny. His final film role was as Dominwski in "The Man With The Golden Arm."

July 25, 1991: After a while I was able to walk without the crutches

Thirty years ago today

            I got up at around 10:00 on Thursday and Nancy made me an omelette. I watched TV until 12:30 and then started trying to walk, but I needed the crutches at first. I shaved and it took a long time.

            Everybody went out and left me alone. After a while I was able to walk without the crutches and I cleaned up the family room a bit. I worked on my "Venus Eclipsed By Saturn" collage and then got tired and watched Star Trek. 

            Nancy's mother Appolonia brought me some cherries and watermelon. 

            I called Mike Copping at my place and told him I'd be coming down tomorrow and instructed him to leave the keys on the bathroom window ledge. 

            I watched "1941." Nancy didn't like my choices of TV shows and thought that I watched them too late.

Nancy Priddy

            On Friday morning I ran through my translation of "Adieu California" by Serge Gainsbourg. I uploaded it to Christian's Translations and published it, then posted the lyrics on Facebook. The next Gainsbourg song I work on will be "Manu Manuréva", which is about the famous disappearance of a ship on the ocean. 

            I weighed 89.3 kilos before breakfast. Around midday I scraped most of the black off the bottom of my heart shaped cake pan. Next there's a square baking pan that's going to take a lot of work. 

            I weighed 88.9 kilos before lunch. I had kettle chips, mango-lime salsa and yogourt with a glass of orange juice. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. It was surprisingly hot outside considering how pleasant it was in my apartment. On my way back along Queen I had to weave around cars to get past cyclists that didn't want to venture into the narrow spaces between vehicles and construction cones. I weighed 88.6 kilos when I got home.

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

            At 18:00 I pulled my couch out and moved the book shelf kitty corner to the northwest wall. I centred the leather shock therapy machine that I've dressed up my Roland amp to be and set up the Nikon on the tripod. I shot the video at a couple of heights and with different lighting, sometimes with my reading lamp shining upwards and sometimes off. I did some with the red bike flashers inside my Martian Bouquet sculpture and some without. But all of this was in ambient light from sunset filtering into the room. I still needed some footage when it's darker and so I turned the camera off, hoping the battery would still have enough charge to shoot some more. 

            But after writing the above I realized that while waiting for sunset I could just remove the battery and charge it, so I did that at about two hours before sunset. But I was hoping the room would be fairly dark before then. 

            I colourized three more damage spots in my photo of the skateboarder. The battery was charged just after 20:00. It was a little bit dimmer because there was no direct sunlight outside but it wasn't quite dusk. I did some of the same light effects as before. Then I decided to close the curtains and that seemed to make it as dark as I wanted it to be. The machine looked sinister enough with the red flashes shining out of the sculpture. I'll have a look at the video after I upload it tomorrow and see how it turned out. 

            I moved everything back into place but when I moved the couch one end of the wooden base of the futon frame broke off from the back. So the couch was slightly lopsided. I managed to straighten it out for sitting by propping the back against the wall and pushing the base as far as I could. Sometime soon I'll have to pull it out again to see what can be done. It's possible the back doesn't even need to be attached as long as it's against the wall and the base is in between the boards. I might have to consider getting a new couch soon, but next time I might not get a futon. But then again if my daughter ever comes to visit she would need something to sleep on. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last two chicken drumsticks while watching two episodes of Mayberry RFD. The bag of New Brunswick potatoes I bought are not very good. They almost turn to liquid once they're cooked. I don't recall my father growing shitty potatoes like that.

            The first story begins with an unlikely scenario. A local elderly rich man named Mr Fremont rolls up to Goober's gas station and asks him to take care of his house and drive his car for two weeks. There is no back story set up to indicate why Goober would be his choice even though that wouldn't be difficult to do. It turns out that Goober has never even been inside the man's house so what would explain the trust when there are probably many choices of people in Mayberry that could do the job? That just seems like fucking lazy writing to me. Since Goober is driving the Rolls Royce around he decides to play the part and put on his best clothes. He also drives to a fancy restaurant looking for pheasant under glass but since they don't have it he orders a pork sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk. Alone at the table next to his is a pretty young woman named Diane Willoughby and the waiter gets her tuna salad mixed up with his pork sandwich. Goober suggests they eat together and so she joins him. Then Diane's mother arrives and is somewhat disinterested in Goober until the waiter mentions his Rolls Royce. When she asks what business he's in he exaggerates his gas station by saying he's in oil. He invites the mother and daughter to come and see the house where he's living. On the way Sam sees him and calls to him. Goober stops but introduces his friend as "Farmer Jones." Emmett turns out to be at the house because Goober had asked him to fix the garbage disposal but Goober calls him "Mr Clark." Goober begins seeing a lot of Diane and they are happy together but Diane wants to get something off her chest and confesses that she and her mother are broke. Goober still hasn't got the nerve to be honest with her but later he invites Diane and her mother and Sam and Emmett to the house and tells the women that Sam and Emmett are his friends. When he confesses that the house and car are not his the mother faints while Nancy smiles. Then Mr Fremont comes home early and Diane's mother comes to. She begins to flirt with Mr Fremont. We learn that Goober still hasn't told Diane the whole truth as he switched to another lie and said he was an undercover FBI agent. 

            Diane was played by Nancy Priddy, who is the mother of Christina Applegate. She is also a singer-songwriter and in 1968 put out a psychedelic folk album called "You've Come This Way Before." She was a backup singer for Leonard Cohen's first album and Stephen Stills wrote the song "Pretty Girl Why" for her when he was with the Buffalo Springfield. In 2007 she recorded "Christina's Carousel". 

            In the second story Millie has a dream that something horrible is going to happen to Sam and Howard on their upcoming fishing trip. Niether Sam nor Howard put much stock in dreams but Howard starts to become swayed when Millie lends him a book by a psychologist on the evidence of prophetic dreams. She also tells Howard that she had a dream that he came into some money and he did in fact just get a $58 bonus cheque from the government. Suddenly Howard starts to worry. He takes a hard hat and a sword with him on the fishing trip. Other than Howard stepping into a deep hole in the lake and going under for a few seconds, nothing really happens. The next day Sam drops Howard off at his place and Millie is waiting at Sam's house to make sure he got home okay. But while Sam is distracted by Millie he smashes through the barn door. 

            This was a variation of a story from The Andy Griffith Show. In that case it was Warren who had the dream.

July 24, 1991: I thought about how mothers have all the power and society pisses on fatherhood

Thirty years ago today

            I cried a lot on Wednesday thinking about my situation with Nancy and our child. About how she had all the power and how society pisses on fatherhood as if a mother were more important instead of equal.

            At one point Nancy and I were talking very freely and calmly about how we felt. I really wanted to take her in my arms but I was afraid she'd freeze up. 

            Nancy and her family went off in the car and so I was free to masturbate with oil in front of the TV. I also watched Star Trek and Hunter. 

            Mike Copping called and wanted to stay at my place for two nights because he was working in the area. When he came by for the keys I asked him to water my plant. 

            Nancy made me some oven fries but it seemed she was getting tired of waiting on me.

Joan Tompkins

            On Thursday morning before going to bed I noticed that drawn into the dirt on the outside of the upper left side of my living room window is a circle larger than the average clock with eight lines about three centimetres in length drawn on the inside, tilted toward the centre of the circle and arranged symmetrically to one another with four on each side. Someone would have needed to have been up on a ladder to have drawn the circle and it had been well over a year since anyone had been up there. The last would have been when the painters were preparing for Popeyes to move in. It felt kind of spooky, arcane and invasive. I went to bed feeling creeped out but hours later it wasn't even visible in the daylight and even when it was night again it didn't show up until it was absolutely dark and even then one had to focus to see it. So it's possible that it's been there for years without me noticing since I haven't risked my life to clean that window on the outside for at least ten years. 

            After yoga I finished working out the chords for "Adieu California" by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through it in French. Tomorrow I'll try it in English and then upload it to Christian's Translations. 

            I weighed 89.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I scraped my heart shaped cake pan under the rim and on the sides. I still have the bottom to do and then there's another baking pan under the oven that will probably take a couple of days to clean. What with the stove, the shelf underneath and the kitchen shelves and cabinets that I have to clean, it doesn't look like I'll return to my floor scrubbing project this summer. 

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

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. I found some books in a box and took Huckleberry Finn, Faust, a Bone graphic novel plus Unto This Last by John Ruskin. I got past half of a long line of slow cyclists on the Bloor bike lane but when I tried to go out onto Bloor to pass the rest I got snagged in traffic and the whole line got ahead of me again. I passed them all a couple of blocks later. I rode to Yonge and Bloor and weighed 89.4 kilos when I got home at 18:00. 

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

            I ran four electrical cords out through rips in the leather covering that I sewed over my Roland amp towards its role in the video I'm making for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy." I stuck the other ends of the cords into the underside of my Martian Bouquet sculpture on top of the amp. I searched through all my spare bike flashers and found one red one. I removed the back flasher from my bike and cleaned it up. The batteries have long run out on that one since because of the pandemic I haven't worked at night or had any night classes for over a year. I replaced the batteries in both flashers and they work fine. I'll place one flasher inside each mouth of the sculpture when I shoot the video and I think I'm ready to do that tomorrow evening. I'll just have to move the couch out of the way and move the bookshelf on which the amp is standing so it's centred in the corner of the room. 

            I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching two episodes of Mayberry RFD. 

            In the first story Pamela Bennington, the fashion editor for the Mount Pilot Clarion declares Millie Swanson to be the best dressed woman in the county. Millie begins to think in terms of trend setting and believes that the midi dress is the latest style. When she starts wearing them instead of mini skirts the men of the town become upset because they want to see women's legs. But also the married men are angry because their wives suddenly want to get rid of their short dresses and spend their money on longer ones. Howard asks Pamela to be the guest of honour at the Mayberry dance and Millie is surprised when she shows up in a mini skirt. She explains to Millie that she thinks the mini and the midi can be in fashion together as a woman's choice. As every man is asking Pamela to dance she says she has more fun in a mini. Millie expects Sam to ask her to dance when their song "Moon River" begins to play, but Sam walks right past her to ask Pamela. Millie goes back to wearing mini skirts. 

            Emily, one of Millie's friends, was played by Joan Tompkins, who started out in local theatre and then Broadway before working in radio. She starred in the radio soap opera "This Is Nora Drake." She and her husband Karl Swenson founded an acting company in Beverley Hills. After he died she became an author and started a writing group that spawned many successful authors. After WWII she adopted a disabled Polish boy who grew up to be a successful photographer. Their story is told in the documentary "Child From A Catalogue." 

            Pamela was played by Judith McConnell, who won the Special Talent award in the 1965 Miss America pageant. She played Yeoman Tankris in the Star Trek episode "Wolf In The Fold." She had a recurring role as a bank secretary on The Beverly Hillbillies and played Eb's girlfriend on Green Acres. She was in the movie "The Weather Man." She co-starred on the soap opera "Santa Barbara" from 1984 to 1993. 

            In the second story Howard is going to play host to his sixteen year old nephew Spud because he's going through a period of trying to find himself. When Spud steps off the bus Howard is shocked to see that he is a hippy. He asks him to scrunch down during the car drive to his place because he doesn't want people to see him. Howard learns that Spud has dropped out of school and has rejected clocks and the nine to five snakepit. He wants to go and live off the land like Henry David Thoreau. Sam offers to Spud a shack in the woods on his farm to test his commitment to this romantic lifestyle. After a few days Spud gets boored and starts to feel the desire to participate in society. 

            I went through a similar thing when I was sixteen but since I was already raised on a farm I had no desire to live off the land. I wanted to live off the street. I was more committed than Spud. 

            Spud was played by 23 year old Brad David. He didn't look 16 but he was short. He tended to be typecast as hippies and druggies but he did land a regular part in the series "Firehouse," which was canceled in the middle of its first season.

July 23, 1991: After the cast came off I groaned when told I would need a walking cast

Thirty years ago today 

            On Tuesday morning Nancy's mother drove us down to St Joe's. We got there about an hour early for my appointment but I was able to get the cast off ahead of schedule. My ankle was still a little sore but the guy who took the cast off didn't think I would need another one. I still had to use the crutches because my left leg felt so weak from not walking for ten days. After the doctor looked at my ankle and poked around at it for a while I groaned when he told me that I would need a walking cast for two weeks. I would have to stay off of it for forty eight hours and then I could walk. 

            I crutched it behind Nancy to Roncesvalles and then I caught the streetcar to BGM to pick up my slides and negs and to drop off all the negs to be printed into contact sheets. Nancy showed up much later and so it was too late to do Spadina. Instead we just went to Lime Ricky's before her appointment with the counsellor.

Janos Prohaska

            On Wednesday morning I worked out the chords to the rest of the intro and for the first verse of "Adieu California" by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 90 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I cleaned an omelette skillet and the inside and top of a heart shaped cake pan. I still have to scrub the outside of the latter and then I have six more things from the tray under the stove to clean. I sure do have a lot of dirty things. I wonder if I should take it personally. 

            I weighed 89.9 kilos before lunch. I had wheat thins and five year old cheddar with a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. There sure are a lot of people renting those green Bike Share bikes these days. I assume whomever owns the business is raking it in. When I visited Amsterdam in 1987 they had yellow bikes for sharing but it cost nothing. One would find a bike and ride it to one's destination, then leave it for the next person. I weighed 89.2 kilos after my bike ride.

            There was mail in my box from the Ontario Ministry of Finance. It informed me that based on my income I don't qualify for the Guaranteed Annual Income System. I was surprised and was ready to start an appeal but then I realized that this isn't my federal Guaranteed Income Supplement that I'm losing but rather a piddley $10 a month from GAINS. 

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

            I ripped holes in the leather covering that I've sewn for my Roland amp towards its role in the video I'm making for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy." It was easy to tear a gap to expose the power switch because the leather seems to be rotten or weak in that area. I used tacky putty around the edges of the torn leather to hold them wide enough to fully show the switch and the word "Power" above. To expose three knobs at the top centre of the amp I had to use a box cutter blade because the leather is stronger there. I cut it just enough to push the leather around each knob so they are protruding. My next task in the project is to run electrical cords from rips in the leather up to the bottom of my Martian Bouquet sculpture that's standing on top of the amp. I installed one cord this time just to get things started. I haven't decided yet how many cords I'll use. After that's done I want to put some batteries in a few red bike flashers that I have so that before I shoot the video I'll have them flashing red from inside the sculpture. 

            I colourized three more damage spots in my photo of the skateboarder. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilicata sauce and five year old cheddar and had it with a beer while watching two episodes of Mayberry RFD. 

            In the first story Millie is directing a church play in celebration of spring. Goober is a tree and Emmett is Robin Red Breast. Mike has been cast as the spring lamb but is embarrassed by the costume. Sam gives him a lecture on everyone doing their part for the church and he agrees to do it. But then Millie approaches Sam with the costume of the half goat, horned shepherd god Pan and he makes excuses that he is selling tickets and putting up posters and doing his part otherwise. When Mike hears that his father chickened out, Sam fumbles to try to explain why he can't wear the costume but finally realizes he's talked himself into a corner and agrees to do it. As Pan, Sam is supposed to do a little dance but then Emmett is inspired spontaniously to show his own steps. Pan and Robin Red Breast wind up improvising a dance routine together. 

            It seems odd that the church would be okay with a play in which the only god is a pagan one.

            Jodie Foster appears again on the show, this time playing the role of a daisy in the production. She speaks to Emmett during rehearsal about how much fun it is and calls him "Robin Red Breast."

            There is a person in a bear costume dancing in the play. We don't see him out of costume but he was played by Janos Prohaska, who also played the cookie crazy bear on the Andy Williams Show. One assumes the two shows were shot near one another and Janos was already in costume so they invited him to Mayberry. He played a gorilla on Gilligan's Island. He made his own costumes and appeared as different aliens on a few episodes of Star Trek. He died in 1974 along with thirty five other crew members working on the documentary series "Up From The Ape" when their plane crashed in a mountain range in California. 

            In the second story Emmett has been getting treatments from the local barber to try to grow new hair but it's not working. Earl the barber tells him he should consider a toupee. Emmett gets his head measured and spends $125 for the Glen Campbell style but it arrives all wild. Earl says he has no experience with toupees and advises him to go to Sally at the beauty salon. He goes early so no one can see him and Sally fixes it. When Emmett shows it to Martha she says it's beautiful and tells him he looks twenty years younger. But then she goes to the mirror and begins to cry. Emmett sends the toupee back because he doesn't want to make Martha feel old. 

            Sally was played by Joanie Larson, who appeared on the TV shows "The Phyllis Diller Show", "Occasional Wife" and "Camp Runamok."