Alice Ghostley

            On Tuesday morning I searched for the chords to "Adieu California" by Serge Gainsbourg but no one had posted them. I worked them out for part of the instrumental introduction, which is fairly long. 

            I weighed 89.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I cleaned three pans from the tray under my stove. They'd all accumulated a sticky gel that I think maybe used to be olive oil that I'd put on to prevent rust. I cleaned a teflon skillet with an aluminium bottom but only used baking soda on that part. I scrubbed a small cast iron skillet, but most of the work went into cleaning the bottom of an aluminium pie plate. I used copper wool to get the brown stains off but for the underside of the rim I had to get the black out with the corner of a scraper. There are eight pans left under the stove to clean and then I've got to wash the storage tray itself. 

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

            In the afternoon it took longer than usual to post my blog because I was looking for the right photo to accompany it with. I didn't get away for my bike ride until a little after 17:00. I rode to Yonge and Bloor and on the way home along Queen it started raining. It was that kind of summer rain that brings up the smell of ozone after hitting the hot pavement. I managed to make it home before it came down hard enough for me to get wet. 

            I weighed 89.3 kilos at 18:00. 

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

            I finished securing the leather covering for the left side of my Roland amp towards its role in the video I'm making for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy." Now the leather is relatively flat in the front and I think I'm finished with the sewing phase of the project. Next I have to tear holes in the leather to make the switches and knobs visible so that the amp starts to look more like a surreal and barbaric electroshock therapy machine. 

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

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

            In the first story Goober has acquired a new property for his gas station next to where he lives in downtown Mayberry. He's just opened and he's doing three times the business of his old place. When there are no customers he works on digging a new grease pit but has to deal with all the big bones his shovel has been hitting. While Howard is watching he digs up a large skull which Howard recognizes as that of a dinosaur. Goober is disinterested in the bones and lets Howard take them. Howard has them examined by Dr Wallace at the museum in Raleigh and offers to donate the bones to the museum but Wallace says that they already have a set of this type of dinosaur. He suggests that Howard start a museum in Mayberry and asks which direction the skull was pointing when he found it. When Howard tells him he concludes that the rest of the dinosaur is probably still buried under the driveway of the gas station. But Goober refuses to close down his station for two weeks just so Howard can dig up some old bones. Howard however is determined and sneaks into Goober's grease pit at night to start digging sideways to uncover the rest of the bones. He gets some but wakes up Goober with his digging and in Goober's capacity as deputy sheriff he arrests Howard for trespassing. When Sam hears Howard is in jail he demands he be released. Howard goes ahead and opens the museum with the incomplete dinosaur. But when a school teacher brings her class to see the dinosaur Goober is there to hear how disappointed the kids are by only seeing a head and a tail with nothing in between. Goober shuts down his station for ten days and allows Howard to dig the complete dinosaur. 

            Dr Wallace was played by Roy Glenn, who was the second black man to have a speaking part on the show. He played Sidney Poitier's character's father in "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?" He played a lawyer in "Escape From The Planet Of the Apes." 

            In the second story we learn that Aunt Bee has moved to her sister's home and that Sam's cousin Alice is going to take over as housekeeper. Alice is retiring from her rank as sergerant after twenty years in the army. She is not the expert chef that Bee was and is used to making army food like chipped beef on toast with rice and raisins for dessert. She wants very much to fit in with the Mayberry community and attends a meeting of the committee that is planning the ceremony that will accompany the unveiling of the new flagpole and the raising of the flag. When Alice learns that they are having trouble finding someone to bake the three tiered flag cake which will be the centrepice for the table, she volunteers. It's not that she can't bake but she hasn't done it for twenty years and it turns out horribly. Alice is too embarrassed to attend the ceremony and stays home. But as things are being set up the Boy Scout who is supposed to play the bugle while the flag is raised turns out to have gotten hit in the mouth by a baseball and so now he can't play. Suddenly Sam gets an idea and rushes home. Later as the ceremony begins, Alice marches up in her uniform and with her trumpet to play what I guess is the traditional flag raising music. She is now fully accepted in Mayberry. Later Sam and Alice sit on the porch and sing in harmony. 

            Alice Cooper was played by Alice Ghostley, who with her sister Gladys, started out performing as The Ghostley Sisters. She later went solo and developed her own musical and comedic cabaret act. Her big break came when she sang "The Boston Beguine" on Broadway in the show "New Faces of 1952" and later reprised her part in the film adaptation. Continuing on Broadway she was nominated for a Tony for her role in "The Beauty Part." Three years later she won the Tony for her part in "The Sign In Sidney Brustein's Window." On the small screen she played one of the evil stepsisters in the 1957 adaptation of Cinderella. She was a frequent panelist on The Hollywood Squares and The Match Game. She played a teacher in "Grease." She played Esmerelda on "Bewitched" and was nominated for an Emmy for her role as Bernice on "Designing Women". She was a regular on "The Julie Andrews Hour". She played Aggie on "The Ghost and Mrs Muir". She played Irna Wallingsford on "Evening Shade" and Ida May Brindle on "Small Wonder". She played a ghost on the soap opera "Passions". She co-starred in the movie "Gator". She played Grandmama in "Addams Family Reunion".