Theodore Marcuse

            On Wednesday morning I finished memorizing "Les dessous chics" (Lingerie Chic) by Serge Gainsbourg and looked for the chords. I found one set on Boite a Chanson (Song Box) and started to transcribe them. I'll finish that and look for some more tomorrow. 

            I did a shortened song practice and at about 7:50 I started preparing my place for Bedbug treatment. I got my bedding and clothes bagged and ready to take to laundromat. I took out the drawers of my couch frame and my desk. I vacuumed and while I was running the nozzle along my bed I must have killed a bedbug because I smeared some blood on the bedbug proof mattress cover. I flipped my couch frame on its end in two parts. I haven't seen a bedbug on the couch in years but just in case. I was done by 9:30 and had breakfast. 

            The window for Orkin coming was between 9:00 and 13:00, so I might have a long wait. I knew that at least one other unit was being treated today because I saw that Shankar in unit 5 had pinned his consent form to the bulletin board in the hall. 

            After 13:00 pest control had still not come and so I knocked on Benji's door to find out if he'd heard anything. He was waiting just like me and he wanted to go for lunch. Sean from unit 6 on the third floor came down and he was also waiting but he works from home as part of an Amex call centre and so he wasn't as inconvenienced. I asked him if he'd seen any bedbugs and he said that he hadn't. I was surprised because he's next door to David who has them. I asked if he was sure he knew what a bedbug looks like and he said he'd looked them up. He finally admitted that he'd seen some tiny red bugs and then he looked them up again and started worrying that he might have bedbugs after all. 

            I called Orkin and got sent to voice mail twice before finally finding out that the landlord had canceled the bedbug treatment. Later I learned by email that he had canceled it because I had refused to let him personally inspect my place. I couldn't believe even he would be so petty and vindictive that he would jeopardize the health and well being of all his tenants because of some little ego tug of war with me. Bedbugs can lay 500 eggs in ten months and each hatched bedbug can reproduce within a month. He said by email that he was rescheduling the pest control appointment but suggested that he would cancel it again if I don't consent to him pretending to be an inspector in my place. He clearly doesn't take this problem seriously. 

            I weighed 83.9 kilos at 15:20. I had a very late lunch of saltines and five-year-old cheddar with a glass of limeade. 

            I tried to take a siesta at 15:52 but I was so upset at my landlord that I couldn't sleep. I got up at 16:52. 

            I went up and talked to David to let him know that the treatment had been canceled. He said he lost two hours of work because he was waiting without any notice from the landlord about it being canceled. He should bill the landlord for his lost wages. 

            It was too late to take a bike ride so I just went out to buy a six-pack of Creemore. 

            I weighed 83.4 kilos at 17:30. I think that's a record low since I bought the scale a few years ago. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:32. 

            I spent about ninety minutes on my Medieval Literature essay. I think I have all the information that I need and so I've started expanding it and trying to connect it all into an argument. So far I'm just short of two and a half pages when I need six. I could have gotten a lot more done today if the landlord had not wasted my time. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a cut up beef burger, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 3, episode 3 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            Mr. Drysdale wants to start demolishing the movie mock up of Dodge City on the back lot of Mammoth Studios so he can begin building Clampett City. But then he learns that the Clampetts have moved into the old western city and they've started to fix up the general store as a real one. Jed is doing the carpentry and Granny and Jethro deliver egg-laying chickens and big bags of salt, flour, and grain.

            Drysdale comes to try to convince Jed to let him demolish the town and build Clampett City. "You'll have forty story buildings". "I like it the way it is". "You'll make millions". "Don't need em." "Surely you want them." "What fer?" "To have them." "I got em". "But you'll make more." "I don't need em." 

            Drysdale tells the Clampetts they can all have parts in Chapman's new picture about Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, and Nero who couldn't possibly live in the same era. Jethro is cast as Caesar and Granny is Cleopatra. Drysdale's plan is that while the Clampetts are busy with the movie, he'll demolish the western town. Drysdale rides with a bulldozer driver to knock down the general store, but just before it makes impact, Jed emerges from inside, so Drysdale is foiled again.

            On the movie set Elly May is playing a slave girl being thrown to the lions. The lion is released and charges towards her but Elly has the ability to charm any animal and the next thing we see is it lying with its head on Elly's lap. 

            The actor playing Nero was played by Theodore Marcuse, who was a decorated naval officer during WWII. After the war he specialized in Shakespearean theatre. His Broadway debut was as Demetrius in Antony and Cleopatra. He played Zoltan Schubach in The Last of the Secret Agents, which may have been the inspiration for Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers franchise of films. He co-starred in Mara of the Wilderness. He played Korob in the original Star Trek episode "Cat's Paw". 

            I searched for bedbugs and found none.