Ilona Rodgers

            On Friday morning I blog published "De velours et de soie" (The Silk and the Velvet) by Boris Vian on Christian's Translations. I still have to post it on my Boris Vian Facebook page. 

            I ran through playing and singing "Amour Consolation" by Serge Gainsbourg in French and English and then uploaded it to Christian's Translations to prepare it for blog publication. 

            I had my first song practice with my new Martin guitar. It'll take me a while to automatically know exactly where to place my bar chords on this guitar but when I do have them in the right place it feels easier and it sounds like I'm playing and singing better. The only problem is the strap I'm using is too slippery and I feel I have to subtly shift my body in ways that I don't have to with the Washburn just to hold the guitar from tilting too much up or down while I'm playing. On the Washburn I have a wide leather strap with a leather shoulder pad to help hold it in place. I can't use that specific one on the Martin because it's held on with a shoelace. I need to get a new strap like that one somewhere. They didn't have that kind at The 12th Fret. 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I tried as best as I could to clean the dust off my Kramer electric guitar. I packed it in a gig bag and at about 12:15 I rode up the street to L'il Demon Guitars. John saw right away what the main problem is. The Floyd Rose locking system on the bridge has tilted up when it should be level with the guitar. He says several factors can cause that, such as changing all the strings at once, using too heavy a gauge of strings, or mixing gauges. Maybe not playing it for a long time also caused it, combined with the dryness in my place. He says he can fix it up for about $200 with maybe a few extras like repairing some of the frets. He said that the Kramer is a great guitar and I'll be happy with it once he's done. He said it'll be ready in about a week. 

            He showed me his Kramer. I guess my Kramer is one of the last ones from when the original Kramer company went out of business in 1991. They were bought by Gibson and are being made by their Epiphone division. But what they make are classic models imitating the old Kramers. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride even though it was raining because I wanted to try to get a decent guitar strap at Long and McQuade. The straps upstairs in the acoustic section were too short for what I want. I went downstairs and tried on a couple of leather straps for electric guitars. They were long enough but still slippery. 

            I went home and took the leather strap off my Washburn. It's too short by itself but I connected it to the bottom button. I found a piece of a broken belt and attached it to the neck button. Then I found a leather string that was part of a little carrying bag I never used and tore that off. I tied the string between the belt hole and the neck end of the old leather strap. I adjusted the length a bit and although it's not pretty I have a guitar strap that doesn't slide as much because it has a wide leather shoulder pad that fits onto the strap. 

            I weighed 84.7 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:15. 

            I reviewed the rest of the videos of me playing "La bas c'est natural" and "Kenya" from July 7 to July 15 of 2022. All of them had too much traffic noise. I'll go back and listen to the ones that I noted as being not so noisy. If they are I'll go into Movie Maker and listen to the two or three sessions that I synchronized and see what happens if I turn down the camera volume and increase the microphone. If all fails I'll consider this session of this song a write-off and try to get it on the next session, maybe in a month or so. 

            I looked for video to correspond with the line, "It helps us to remember it's the patient's fault" from my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy". The only thing I can find is the clip of Donald Sutherland pointing in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Maybe I'll use that and switch it to grey scale. 

            I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching season 7, episodes 4 and 5 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In the first story Granny has become Colonel Dumbarton's physician and she's treating him for alcoholism with liberal doses of moonshine. 

            Jethro is watching Dumbarton Castle through a telescope and he says he's in love with the beautiful girl who is visiting. That's Dumbarton's niece Sandra MacGregor. He tells Jed and Granny to look but by the time they look Sandra is gone and what they think they see is a big ugly woman in a skirt. It's really Sandra's brother Emwyn wearing a kilt. They think there is something wrong with Jethro. Jethro meets Sandra in the forest and she thinks he's joking when he asks her to marry him and so she jokingly says she will. Granny doesn't want Jethro to marry the big woman until Dumbarton tells her the wedding is off. Now she insists there be a wedding. Meanwhile Emwyn has gotten into his uncle's moonshine and Jed and Granny see him staggering around looking for Elly while playing his bagpipes. Granny thinks he's carrying a bag of whisky and that he's sucking on it through four straws and whining. Jane explains that it's a boy and that he's wearing a kilt. Finally they meet Sandra. She lies that she couldn't marry Jethro because she's a commoner and if the queen found out he would be beheaded. Jed says that calls for a celebration, and in the next scene everyone is wearing kilts and dancing while Dumbarton plays "Turkey in the Straw " on the bagpipes. Although it's considered to be a North American folk song, the tune might be derived from an old English, Scottish, or Irish melody anyway. 

            In the second story Drysdale wants the Clampetts to go back to Los Angeles and so when he hears that Clampett Castle is haunted by the ghost of Clementine Clampett he decides to use that to deceive Granny and play on her superstitions so she will want to go home. She is scared but Jethro says he'll get rid of the ghost with a seance. Drysdale bugs the room where the seance is held and pretends to be a ghost as he speaks through the microphone. Then he puts on a sheet to scare Granny but she shoots him in the ass with a shotgun. They all finally leave and on the plane Jed thinks he's seen a ghost when a woman in a white bourka gets on the plane. 

            Sandra MacGregor was played by Ilona Rodgers, who trained on the stage. Her breakthrough role was in the 1964 season of Doctor Who, in the story known as The Sensorites. In the 1970s she co-starred in the New Zealand soap opera Close to Home. In the 1980s she played Margaret Dunn on the Australian series Son's and Daughters. Her best known role was on the New Zealand series Gloss.