Mike Minor

            On Tuesday morning I finished revising my translation of "Quoi" by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through singing and playing it. I uploaded it to Christian's Translations to prepare it for publication on the blog. 

            I weighed 85.7 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I've been in the morning in eight days. 

            Around midday I worked for about an hour and a half cleaning in the bathroom. I finished scrubbing the black off all of the tiles in the shower and so now all of the walls are done. I cleaned the inside and top of the bathtub and part of the side. There's just the side of the bathtub and the floor to finish and then I have to finally repair the depression in the kitchen floor. 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I started a bike ride, but it was slightly cooler than I'd dressed for and so I stopped to put my long sleeved shirt on. While doing that I noticed some bags on the curb just north of Maple Grove, so I rode over there and found someone had thrown out several cans of various kinds of beans, two cartons of vegetable broth, and a can of evaporated milk. They were all just past their best before dates but I'm sure they're fine so I took them all home and then went back out for my ride downtown and back. On the way home I was scat singing. I think I'd like to put some scat into one of my songs. Scat is interesting because it needs to skedaddle around language without landing on any words. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:30. 

            I compared my June 14 recording of "La jambe de bois" with July 3 and there is more traffic noise on July 3. I compared June 14 with July 9 and July 9 has more fumbles with the C# chord. But I don't think June 14 is really good enough to upload to YouTube. It's just the least bad of the French ones. I think I'll just wait to see if my next recording session produces better versions of both songs. 

            I reviewed the recordings of my performances of "Dance and Sing to Baby Pop" on June 11 and 13 of last year. June 11 was pretty good. The main thing wring with June 13 is that the camera is blurry.

            In the Movie Maker project for creating a video of my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" I wanted to synchronize the concert video with the studio audio for my line "just in case you want to reduce the violence of these convulsions" but I couldn't find it in the main video. I have a copy of the concert off the end of the main video timeline and I finally found it there. I wrote down it's timeline position. I'll clip it out and insert it tomorrow to see if I can synchronize them. 

            I scanned the rest of the negatives of my ex-girlfriend Brenda and her best friend Suzanne. I found one more negative from the shots I took of my ex-girlfriend Whitefeather in 1982. 

            I started scanning another set of negs from my visit to Amsterdam. 

            I had a potato with the last of my gravy and the last of my pork ribs while watching season 8, episodes 14 and 15 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In the first story it's Lance Bedford's first day as vice president of his Uncle Milburn Drysdale's bank, so the Clampetts go over to give him little presents for good luck. Jed gives him the jackknife he was carrying when he struck oil, Granny gives him pickled owl gizzards, Jethro gives him his rabbits foot, his buckeye, and his dried frog, and Elly May gives him two kisses. But then Margaret Drysdale walks in and starts insulting the Clampetts. Granny breaks a flower pot over Margaret's head. When Milburn gets to work he finds that Margaret has ordered his office to be given to Lance and that the washroom is to be Milburn's office. Lance interviews the four pretty secretaries that have featured in the last few episodes to pick one for his office.

            Meanwhile Jethro has seen how the girls at the bank fawn over Lance and so he's rented an air force uniform. He plans to join and he wants good pay and so he figures he'll start as a four star general. Lance is out looking for new accounts for the bank and runs into Jethro in his uniform. Jethro says he'll put his allowance in the bank. Lance goes back and tells Milburn that he's landed the account of a four star general. Milburn is impressed and breaks out the champagne, but then he finds out that the general is Jethro and that his allowance is fifty cents. 

            In the second story the Clampetts get a letter from Bettie Jo and Steve in Hooterville. Suddenly they decide to go to Hooterville. Jethro is still wearing his four star air force general's uniform. He starts demanding breakfast from Granny and she tells him the air force can feed him. 

            A while later in Hooterville, Sam Drucker and Howard Hewes see an air force helicopter land in front of Drucker's Store and a four star general gets out. It's Jethro and it takes a minute or so for Sam to figure out who he is. Jethro's going to the Shady Rest Hotel to ask for flying lessons from Steve Elliot. When Steve hears that a four star air force general wants flying lessons from him he thinks it's a joke, since any air force general would know how to fly a plane. Steve says he was in the air force for four years and never saw a four star general. Jethro climbs into Steve's plane and asks how to start it. Steve says the engine's inoperative and Jethro says, "Well let's fly over there and get it". At that point both Steve and Bettie realize it's Jethro. 

            The Clampetts arrive at the Shady Rest. Steve has made Jethro stop wearing a general's uniform. Steve says he can't give Jethro flying lessons because his plane isn't safe. Jethro tells Jed that Steve needs a new plane. Jed decides to buy out Uncle Jo's share of the crop dusting business he has with Steve and Howard Hewes wants in on it since the airport is in his pasture. Jed calls Drysdale about the financial arrangements but Drysdale doesn't want Jed to spend his money. But then he hears he's going into business with Howard Hewes. Drysdale however thinks that Jed means Howard Hughes the famous eccentric billionaire and airline magnate, and he becomes very excited. He's going to catch the first plane to get to Hooterville. 

            Steve Elliot was played by Mike Minor, who was the son of Don Fedderson, the producer of "My Three Sons" and "Family Affair" among other shows. Mike got his first singing gig at the age of 14. In 1966 he joined the cast of Petticoat Junction and eventually his character married Bettie Jo, played by Linda Henning. A year later he married Henning in real life but they divorced after five years. As a singer he recorded two albums. He sang the theme song "Primrose Lane" for the sitcom The Smith Family. On the soap opera Another World he played Dr. Royal Dunning His stage debut was in The Impossible Years in 1968. He also played characters on As the World Turns; and All My Children, as Brandon Kingsley. In 1999 he starred on Broadway as Inspector James Ascher in A Perfect Crime.