I finished working out the chords for “Bana basadi balalo” (While All the Women Are Sleep-ing) by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through the song in French.
I video-recorded most of my song practice and audio-recorded the whole session. It took me three tries to get through both “Megaphor” and “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” and I screwed up the epi-logue of the second song again. On at least one of the recordings I’ve done over the last few weeks, there must be at least one of that song that turned out fine. Friday will be my last recording session, so until next summer I can relax and just play all the songs every morning without stressing out over them so much.
I weighed 85.8 kilos before breakfast.
Around midday, I washed all of the items that I’d taken off the three shelves at the east end of my kitchen yesterday. It’s all mostly bowls, large storage jars, and utensils that hang from hooks under the middle shelf.
I washed two pairs of shorts, a tank shirt, and some underwear and put them out on the deck to dry.
I weighed 85.3 kilos before lunch.
In the afternoon I put on one of the pairs of shorts that I’d hung on the deck. They were still damp as I headed out for my bike ride, but I was sure that they’d be dry before I got downtown, and I was right. On the way back I stopped at the light on Queen at Bathurst when a guy sitting in a doorway, wearing an off-white pork pie hat, said to me, “Hey brow!” Then he pointed at me and said, “I love you!” I said, “Thanks.” He said he thinks everybody needs to hear that once a day. It doesn’t do much for me but to each their own.
I stopped at Freshco on the way home, where I bought five bags of grapes, two pints of strawberries, two half-pints of raspberries, a sack of potatoes, five-year-old cheddar, skyr, two small jugs of orange juice that were on sale, Folger’s coffee, kettle chips, and a pack of Irish Spring soap.
I weighed 85.1 kilos at 17:40.
I was caught up on my journal at 18:40.
I uploaded the song practice videos that I shot this morning and skimmed through them.
I put the DVD of the Christian and the Lions concert videos into my computer’s DVD player and used Total Video Converter to change the Riot Gallery video from VOB to AVI. The conversion had failed yesterday when I tried to convert those same files that I’d copied from my old computer, but this time it worked. Total Converter froze after slowly trying to convert VTS_03_1, but when I tried again it sped through it and was successful. I redid the VTS_03_2 file I converted yesterday just in case it would be better quality. I couldn’t tell the difference, but I deleted the one from yesterday anyway. Then I converted the VTS_04_1 file but the first time it only made it to 33%; the second time it got to 65%, and only the third time did it finish. I’d thought that the last one had been of the Riot Gallery as well but it was of my open stage at the Gladstone. Tomorrow I’ll try to import both of the converted Riot Gallery videos into Movie Maker so as to combine the two rather than having them chopped up by VOB. Then I can copy and edit further so I have just one full concert video of my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy". Then I’ll use a piece of that to replace the frozen file in my Movie Maker project for making a creative video of the song.
I had a potato with gravy and a heated-up sirloin steak while watching four Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1944.
In the first story, a family of three bears made up of a papa, a mama, and their child, are very hungry. The child appears to be a very unintelligent adult in a diaper and he is twice as big as his parents. The father is abusive and often hits the child but that is not addressed. The father gets an idea of how they could get food. He reminds his family of the story of the three bears and Goldilocks and so they plan on luring Goldilocks with porridge so they can eat her. However, they have no porridge but only some carrots so the mother makes carrot soup. They follow the script of the fairy tale but this time instead of leaving to let the soup cool, they hide in their house, so as to pounce on Goldilocks when she arrives. But it is Bugs Bunny who is attracted to the smell of the carrots. He comes and eats the soup, then goes upstairs to bed. They find him sleeping in the baby bear’s bed and jump him but then he’s not there. When the mother tries to grab Bugs he tells her she’s beautiful and gives her a big kiss. Suddenly she is in love with Bugs Bunny and when her husband and child try to attack him, she won’t let them touch him. She sends them away and then asks Bugs to tell her more about her eyes. He tries to escape but everywhere he goes she’s kissing him. He runs for the hills screaming.
In the second story, it’s a cold winter night but it’s nice and cozy inside the home of a little old lady. She’s tucked her dog Silvester in to be comfortable by the fire and then is about to go to bed when there is a knock on the door. The lady finds a very cold Bugs Bunny on her doorstep and brings him in. She gives him Silvester’s pillow and blanket and tells him to take care of the rabbit. But as soon as she goes to bed Silvester tosses Bugs back outside. Bugs constructs a snow rabbit in front of the door and then calls out that he is freezing. Silvester is moved to sympathy and decides to let him in. He brings in the snow effigy and puts it by the fire but when it melts he feels remorse because he thinks he has killed the rabbit. But Bugs is alive inside the house. When the old lady calls, “What’s going on down there?” Bugs tells Silvester to hide and opens a door for him but he has been tricked into going outside. But then Bugs feels bad and brings the frozen dog inside. When Silvester warms up, the two begin trading kicks and punches. Bugs asks him to step outside and he accepts the challenge, but it’s another trick. The dog gets back inside and they start tossing each other out until the old lady wakes up and tosses them both out. But then they both throw the old lady out and then they sit pleasantly together by the fire.
In the third story, a hunting dog with an Eastern European accent is hunting for a grey rabbit. At first, the dog doesn’t know that Bugs is a rabbit and asks if he’s seen one. Bugs tosses him into a hole and walks away. Then the dog realizes that was a rabbit and chases him. Bugs dives into the water and the dog follows. There is a chase scene on the sea bottom and both Bugs and the dog can talk underwater. Bugs disguises himself as a mermaid and seduces the dog until he lets it slip that it’s a disguise. The dog says he’s hungry now and wants a rabbit sandwich. Suddenly Bugs is a French wait-er taking the dog’s order for a rabbit sandwich but then says they are all out of rabbits. Bugs puts on the costume of Elmer Fudd and imitates his speech impediment as he hunts for rabbits. But the dog catches Bugs again and this time Bugs takes two big slices of bread and goes to bed between them. The dog begins to eat and Bugs does a dramatic death scene. The dog feels bad and says he wishes he was dead. Bugs hands the dog a gun and he shoots himself in the head.
In the fourth story a very loud Red Riding Hood with a Brooklyn accent is singing badly “The Five O’clock Whistle” (by Kim Gannon, Gene Irwin, and Joe Myrow, made famous by Ella Fitzgerald) as she skips her way through the forest: “The five o’clock whistle’s on the blink, the whistle won't blow and whadd'ya think? My pop is still in the factory 'cause he don't know what time it happens to be.”
Bugs Bunny pokes his head out of the basket and asks her what’s in the basket. She explains it’s a rabbit she’s bringing to grandma … “…ta Have!” Meanwhile, a wolf wants to get the goodies intended for grandma. He goes to grandma’s house and there is a note from grandma that she is working the swing shift at Lockheed and that Red should slip the rabbit under the door. The wolf goes in and puts on grandma’s clothes and gets into bed. But he finds four other wolves with the same idea so he has to kick them out.
When Red arrives she gives her grandma the basket and before leaving says she almost forgot to tell her what big eyes she has. The wolf says, “Yeah, yeah, big eyes” and tosses her outside. But she comes back in and says, “Hey grandma, that’s an awfully big nose for you … ta have!” The wolf says, “Sure, sure, goodbye” and puts her out again. The wolf chases Bugs through what turns out to be an enormous cottage. In the middle of the chase, Red comes back in and tells the wolf, “What big ears ya got!” The wolf shouts “Get out!” He resumes his fight with the rabbit and they begin mocking each other but it turns into a song and dance. Then Red returns and says, “What sharp teeth ya got!” He throws her out again.
The wolf goes after Bugs again but Bugs pokes the wolf’s butt with a hot coal and sends him up in the air. Before he comes back down Bugs puts a whole tray of hot coals under where he will land. The wolf catches himself with his legs spread between two pieces of furniture but Bugs keeps putting heavier and heavier weights on top of him to bring him closer to the coals. But then Red comes back in shouting again for grandma and Bugs find her so annoying that he frees the wolf and puts Red in his place with her legs spread over the coals and with the weights on top of her while he and the wolf are now buddies leaning on each other and sharing a carrot as they watch and enjoy her being tortured.
The voice of Red Riding Hood was done by Bea Benaderet, who started out on local radio. She’d planned on being a dramatic actor but found she had an affinity for comedy and also for a variety of accents. Her big break on network radio was on the Jack Benny Program where she played telephone operator Gertrude Gearshift. She went on to play Blanche Morton on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, school principal Eve Goodwin on The Great Gildersleeve, Millicent Carstairs on Fibber McGee and Molly, and Gloria the maid on Ozzie and Harriet. Starting in 1943 she became the main voice of female characters in the Loony Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons, such as Tweety Bird’s owner Granny. Lucille Ball wanted Bea to play Ethel Mertz in “I Love Lucy” but she couldn’t because of a conflicting contract. She was the voice of Betty Rubble on The Flintstones and on live television, she played Pearl Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies. It was about her character that the Flatt and Scruggs song “Pearl, Pearl, Pearl” was written.
Then she starred as Kate Bradley for four seasons of Petticoat Junction, and since Petticoat Junction was part of the world of the Beverly Hillbillies, the character of Pearl was discontinued.
I searched for bedbugs and knocked something that looked like it might be a bedbug out of a crack, but when I searched my bed and the floor below I couldn’t find it. They don’t move very fast so if it was a bedbug I don’t know where it could have gone.
No comments:
Post a Comment