Denver Pyle

            On Sunday after midnight I did a search for bedbugs and found none. But since I started seeing bedbugs in my place again at the beginning of the summer I've never seen one two days in a row. It's often been every other day. 

            I translated the eighth verse of "Arthur, où t'as mis le corps" (Arthur, Where'd You Put The Corpse?) by Boris Vian: “Oh come on guys, what did you do with your fellow inmate Arthur? / Give a small hint to your old friend the warden / But none of us could remember / how we had fucked up with that piece of shit Arthur / we faced the warden's anger / he fell into a fever / over losing a prisoner.” 

            I tried to finish memorizing “Cuti–réaction” (Skin Prick Reaction) by Serge Gainsbourg. I learned the final verse and chorus but then would lose the earlier verses. But I should have it nailed down tomorrow. 

            It was cold this morning and the landlord hasn't turned the furnace on yet. He always waits to be asked even though he's legally supposed to do it in September. I had my oven on for the first third of song practice to warm up the place. 

            I weighed 89.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            A couple of days ago Tracy Buchanan, the model coordinator at OCADU sent me an email offering some work and asking if I was interested. I answered her today that I'm not really interested. I said I wouldn't say I'd never return but as long as my rent is low, if my expenses don't jump to an extreme degree and as long as my pension keeps coming I won't be working as a model anymore. I've got too many of my own projects and my school work to occupy my time to waste it wrecking my body while posing for artists. She said she understood and added that she would keep my name in her pool of models so I wouldn't lose my union status. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos before lunch. 

            I read 2.1 of "The Winter's Tale" by Shakespeare. Leontes thinks his wife has been having an affair with his childhood friend Polixenes. He plots to have him killed and tasks his servant Camillo with poisoning him. But Camillo reveals the plot to Polixenes and they escape for Bohemia together. This causes Leontes to believe even more that Hermione has betrayed him and he places her in prison.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. It felt like a fall day for the first time this year. On the way down Yonge in the construction lane south of College a car passed me where it isn't supposed to. I came up beside the car at Gerrard and thought about saying something but rap music was blaring from the car too loudly for me to have been heard. 

            I weighed 88.2 kilos in my underwear when I got home and 88.8 kilos in my sweat pants. 

            I read some more of Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs. She talks about her master making her pregnant and how common that was. She said that some female slave owners also used their male slaves to get them pregnant. 

            I read 2.2 of “The Winter's Tale.” Lady Paulina comes to see Hermione in prison but the jailer is instructed not to allow the visit. She learns that Hermione gave birth to a daughter while in custody. She takes the baby to show to Leontes to try to melt his heart but he believes the baby is not his and sends Paulina away. 

            I read another chapter of Life Of A Slave Girl. Linda''s master has built a cottage in the woods for her so that he can discretely have sex with her whenever he wants. She refuses to enter it. She takes a white man for a lover and gets pregnant. As a kind of revenge she reveals this to her master. 

            I made pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with Toscanese sauce, roast beef and extra old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching an episode of Gomer Pyle. 

            In this story Camp Henderson wants to test a new rocket launcher on an unused part of the base. Gomer is sent with a bulldozer to clear away the brush but he discovers that there is a tomato farm there that nobody knew about. Gomer meets the farmer Mr Purcell and is invited back to his house where he meets Mrs Purcell. When Carter hears about this he says Purcell is a squatter but when he tries to get Purcell off he is kicked out. Next a Marine lawyer is sent to try and prove the farm is on Marine property but he is dismissed as well. Then Colonel Grey comes with the lawyer and a copy of the will that gave the property to the Marines. But it turns out that Purcell is a direct descendent of the man who left the will and he points out a part of the document that bequeaths the section where his farm is to him. The Marines decide to let Purcell keep his farm but now Purcell is angry that he was called a liar and shows the colonel that the will also gives Purcell the legal right to the main part of Camp Henderson where all of the men, including the colonel live. The lieutenant and Carter both try and fail to change Purcell's mind, but it's Gomer who comes up with the simple solution that in exchange for keeping the right to keep their base where it is, Camp Henderson will buy all of their tomatoes from Purcell. 

            Mrs Purcell 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. 

            Mr Purcell was played by Denver Pyle, who started out as a drifter. He worked at several jobs before arriving in Hollywood. He acted in hundreds of films and TV shows but had a special association with John Wayne, appearing in several of his films. He played Texas Ranger Frank Hamer in “Bonnie and Clyde.” He played Mad Jack in “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams”, Doris Day's character's father on “The Doris Day Show”, Grandpa on “Tammy” and Uncle Jesse on “The Dukes of Hazzard.“