Dabbs Greer

            On Wednesday at about 0:30 as I was getting ready for bed I did my usual search for bedbugs and found none for the fourth day in a row. 

            I worked on revising my translation of "La java des chaussettes à clous" (The Tap dance of the Hobnail Boots) by Boris Vian. I focused this time on the word "colombin" and found it could be a certain flower, a type of sausage or pigeon droppings. In the first dialogue between police sergeant and officer the sergeant asks the officer if he's shined his shoes and he has but the sergeant warns, "Alors veillez à ne pas les gâter dans quelque colombin" which is "then be careful not to spoil them in some columbin." I concluded he means "Be careful not to soil them on some piece of shit." 

            I have basically finished memorizing "Bébé Polaroid" by Serge Gainsbourg, as I know all the lines. It's just that I haven't quite gotten them in order. I should have it nailed down tomorrow. 

            I weighed 88 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I uploaded the photos I'd taken of the letter my landlord handed me the day before. I was worried that my computer would reject the usb device again and that I'd have to try several times but it seems they are back in love and so there was no problem. I picked the best image and uploaded it to Cloud Convert to turn it into a pdf. I went back in my journal and copied the entry relating to the events that Raja's letter referred to and pasted it along with my notes from yesterday into a document that I put in the same folder as the pdf. Then I went online to Parkdale Community Legal Services and filled out and submitted a form to ask for an interview on the issue. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos before lunch. I had four cream crackers with five year old cheese and a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took my siesta and had a very good ninety minute sleep that I didn't want to get up from. 

            I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. While I was riding I sang "Bébé Polaroid" and when I checked later I had the verses and choruses in the right order and so tomorrow morning I'll just go straight to looking for the chords. 

            I weighed 87.6 kilos at 17:30. 

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

            In my Movie Maker project of the video I'm making for my song "Instructions For Electroshock Therapy" I synchronized the concert video of me singing "Why don't you drive some lightning through their brain?" with that of the studio audio by removing a little bit more of the clip I'd inserted of the woman dancing in her mental hospital cell in the 1926 silent Japanese film "Kurutta Ippeji" (A Page of Madness). I was happy to see and hear that the synchronization continues as I sing "They won't remember who to blame", then stays in sync as I do the repeated downstrumming of the A minor chord and as I sing "shock therapy" again. It only goes out of sync at this point because on the studio audio I hold the A minor longer as I sing the last syllable of "shock therapy". So now I need to insert some more old footage of real shock therapy. I already have the 1940s footage in my project menu and so I copied it to the end of the timeline and trimmed it to show the moment of the second shock session and the convulsions that follow. I'll insert that after "shock therapy" tomorrow and trim it down probably to just the duration of the extended note. 

            I worked on making the graffiti clearer on the brick wall in my "Anti Gravity's Rainbow" photo.

            I made pizza on naan with the last of the Basilicata sauce and extra old cheddar and salsa. I had it with a beer while watching two episodes of Gomer Pyle. 

            The first story introduces Sergeant Carter's girlfriend Bunny as played by Barbara Stuart. Carter hasn't seen Bunny for a month and they have a date tonight but she has a guest named Ilene who is an old friend of the family and she refuses to leave her alone. She tells Vince that it's either a double date or no date at all. So Carter has to find someone to take Ilene out and the only one free is Gomer. Gomer doesn't want to go, especially after Carter lies about Ilene being a society girl but Carter orders him to go. Meanwhile Bunny lies to Ilene that Gomer is an oil millionaire. At first Gomer and Ilene feel awkward and have nothing much to say to one another. They go out to a fancy place and Carter warns Gomer not to do any country dancing, so Gomer and Ilene dance stiffly and at a distance. Finally back at Bunny's place Gomer and Ilene discover that Bunny and Carter lied about them. They are happy to discover that niether of them have money and suddenly they have lots to talk about. 

            Ilene was played by Maggie Peterson, who played Charlene Darling on Andy Griffith. 

            The second story begins with Gomer walking along a country road near the base when he comes across a poor family consisting of a father, a mother, a daughter and a son just as their old beat up truck breaks down. It turns out that the Caldwells are from North Carolina like Gomer and are on their way to seek their fortune in Oregon. Gomer temporarily fixes their truck using Harper Caldwell's suspenders to replace the fan belt. They need a place to sleep and Gomer takes them to a field supply hut. But later an MP kicks them out. Harper calls to Gomer from the fence of the base to tell him what happened. Gomer lets them sleep inside an armoured vehicle but they get kicked out of that as well. Finally Gomer moves the Caldwells into an abandoned shack, not realizing that it is about to be a target in military manoeuvres. Gomer is to fire at the shack with a bazooka but he deliberately misses. But when intentionally missing a second time he ends up hitting the Caldwells' truck. Harper starts to fire back at the Marines. The colonel wants the men to charge but Gomer convinces him to let him go in alone. Gomer tells the Caldwells they'll have to leave and they say they will. The colonel wants to use tear gas but Gomer says all they need is a truck. So the Marines supply them with a truck so they can drive to Oregon. As they start driving away their tire blows out. Gomer says he can fix it in the morning but first he'll have to find a place for them to stay. Suddenly Harper guns the engine and drives away with the flat tire. 

            Harper was played by Dabbs Greer who moved from Missouri to Pasadena in 1943 where he became an adminsitrator and acting instructor at the Pasadena Playhouse. He became well known later as the Reverend Alden on Little House on the Prairie and he also played a reverend on Picket Fences. He played a merchant on Gunsmoke. He co-starred with Tom Hanks in The Green Mile. 

            Mrs Lottie Caldwell was played by Claudia Bryar, who played supporting roles in "Psycho II" and "I Was A Teenage Frankenstein". She was the mother of Paul Barrere, who was a guitarist and singer for the band Little Feat. Jimmy Page said in 1975 that Little Feat was his favourite band from the United States.