Ray Montgomery

            On Thursday I finished working out the chords to "Shanghai" by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through singing and playing the song in French. Tomorrow I'll run through my translation, think of an English title and then upload it to Christian's Translations. 

            I put my newly charged battery back inside my Martin and maybe it symbolically recharged me as well because I had a pretty good song practice, while recording it as usual. I think I might have a good take of Megaphor but I got one chord wrong at the end of Sixteen Tons of Dogma. It's the same chord I often get wrong at that point but usually I get it wrong by going high whereas this time I erred low. I've gotten it right before and I will again. Most of the other songs I got through in one good take and I broke this year's record by making it a couple of verses further into "Like a Boomerang" before the camera battery timed out. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around 12:30 I spent half an hour scrubbing and scraping the residual glue from the part of the kitchen floor where I ripped up the first tile last week. There are still some patches of glue on three of the floorboards in that space but there's a lot on the board that is closest to the kitchen counter. It's going to take at least one full session of cleaning to get that off. 

            I weighed 85 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. The air quality was still bad. I stopped at Freshco where I bought seven bags of grapes, a pack of blackberries, a pack of strawberries, some bananas, three small pre-seasoned steaks, a jug of limeade, a jar of salsa, a bag of kettle chips, and a pack of toilet paper. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos at 17:45. 

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

            I compared the video of my June 19, 2022 performance of "Laisse tomber les filles" with that of June 25 of the same year. There's not much difference between the two and so June 19 has the edge because it's already synchronized in the Movie Maker project for that date. I compared June 19 to July 3 and July 3 has more traffic noise and so I still favour June 19. I compared June 19 to July 9 and there's not enough of a difference for me not to favour June 19, so that's the one I'll upload. 

            I compared the video of my June 11 performance of "Leave the Naive Alone" to June 16 and June 16 has way too much traffic noise. I compared June 11 to June 18 and June 18 has too much traffic noise. I compared June 11 to June 26 and June 26 also has to much traffic noise. I have just June 28 and July 2 to compare and I'll do that tomorrow. 

            The next of my songs I want to make a video for is "Sleep in the Snow" but before I start that there is one more thing I want to do with part of my Instructions for Electroshock Therapy video project. I think that the video clip that I made for it of the dancing electrical cords would make a great gif and so I started looking into how to make one. The options seem to be either using Photoshop or an online gif maker like Gyphy. Although I've never really used Photoshop other than maybe once or twice, it occurred to me that I might have it. I discovered that I had an uninstalled old version of it and so I installed it. Then I opened up my Instructions for Electroshock Therapy project and saved a copy as "Dancing cords". I started deleting everything but that part but didn't finish before dinner because there are so many clips. 

            For dinner I had a potato with gravy and some pork ribs while watching season 2, episodes 10 and 11 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story it's apple harvest season and time for Kate to maker her bachelor butter, which is really just apple butter as far as I can tell. There's no reference to the condiment online other than in relation to this show. She calls it bachelor butter because she gives it to bachelors like Charlie, Floyd, and Sam as a courtesy for all the ways they help her over the year. Kate's method is not very uniform because how much of any given ingredient she adds depends the relative tartness of the apples. President Jack Crandall of HDL Foods is travelling on the Cannonball when Floyd and Charlie stop it to pick apples. He wants to go to Pixley but they tell him he'll have to spend the night at The Shady Rest while Kate makes the bachelor butter. When Jack tastes it he understands. Kate gives him two jars and later he offers her $500 for her recipe. They bring her to a state of the art lab where two food scientists try to write down the exact procedure but it's impossible because Kate's method is intuitive. For instance she says she knows the oven is hot enough when the dog rolls onto his back and sticks his legs up in the air. That doesn't make any sense considering the fact that the dog is a new addition to the family and Kate has been making the bachelor butter for decades. Finally Kate decides her recipe can't be copied and so she returns the cheque. 

            One of the scientists, Mr. Stevens was played by Ray Montgomery, who won a national public speaking contest in 1940. While still in high school he played Noel Chandler on the soap opera Dear John. He signed with Warner Brothers in 1943 but only played supporting roles, such as when he co-starred in the 50s TV series Ramar of the Jungle. That character was a good guy but he tended to be typecast as a villain on television. In 1957 he left acting to join Ad Staff Incorporated. He was the TV coordinator of the company's Canada Dry ad campaign in the west. In later years he opened his own real estate agency. It's amazing how many former Hollywood actors went into real estate after retiring. Maybe one gets a feel for locations with all the different places around Los Angeles one has to work. 

            In the second story the signs point to Billie Joe planning to elope with Dan Plout. Kate likes Dan but the problem is that he is the son of Salma Plout with whom she has been fighting for 16 years or so. We see Billie and Dan discussing marriage and Billie trying on a ring. At first Kate doesn't believe it but everyone else does and Kate gets more and more upset as the evidence becomes more obvious. Then in the middle of the night Dan brings a ladder and Billie climbs down. When Kate sees Billie the next day arrive with Dan, she has accepted it and greets Dan as her son. But then Kate is introduced to Dan's bride Emily. Billie has only been helping Dan with the arrangements. Now Kate is upset because Billie isn't getting married.

June 30, 1993: On the streetcar my daughter kept climbing into the seat in front of us to close the window that I kept opening

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday it was almost noon when I got up to Nancy's place to pick up my daughter. I'd agreed to take her that day and the next. We went straight downtown where I checked the Board of Education to find out when my payday would be and found out the cheque would be there on Friday. I picked up my Ontario College of Art cheque and then we walked to Queen and took the streetcar home. All the way she climbed back and forth from our seat to the next to close the windows that I kept reopening. We got off to check out the jazz festival and she found it very interesting even though no one was playing. She just seemed to want to get up on the stage. At home she played with the hose for a while and then went to sleep for the night at 18:00.

William O'Connell

            On Wednesday morning I worked out the chords for the fourth verse of "Que tu es impatiente lamort" (How Very Impatient is Death) by Boris Vian. There are three verses left.

            I almost finished working out the chords to "Shanghai" by Serge Gainsbourg. There's just four lines of the refrain left and I'll probably have that done on Thursday. 

            I returned to playing the Martin acoustic for song practice and video and audio recorded the session. I got through Megaphor in a take or so. It took a few takes for Sixteen Tons of Dogma but I finished in part A of the battery charge and was able to fit "L'accordion" in as well. The camera battery timed out when I was playing the second verse of Baby Pop. The waveform for the guitar in Ableton looked a little flat so I'm wondering if I need to recharge the battery. I just listened to some of the playback and the guitar sounds distorted in the second half. I looked it up online and that's a sign that the battery is running low. I'll charge it today. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I took the 9 volt battery from my Martin and tried to put it in the charger. The logical place to put my battery was where it said 9V over the big and small round protrusions that looked like they would fit in the positive and negative slots of the battery, but I couldn't make them fit, and I was really pushing. I got dressed and was about to take it to the hardware store where I bought it to ask for help, but then I decided to give it one more try. I pushed just a little harder than before and this time it fit. 

            I washed, scrubbed and scraped the area of the kitchen floor in front of the counter where I tore up the first tile last week. I was able to remove most of the glue but there's still a considerable amount and so it will take at least another half hour. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before lunch. I had Triscuits with five-year-old cheddar. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back through the most polluted air that I think I've ever had to breathe. The smell of smoke was especially obnoxious along Queen Street in my neighbourhood and further east. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:55. 

            I reviewed all the videos of my performances of "Laisse tomber les filles" and "Leave the Naive Alone" from June 25 to July 15, 2022. For "Laisse tomber les filles" June 25 was pretty good; on June 27 and 29, July 1, 11, 13, and 15 the battery had timed out by the time I did this song; on July 3 it wasn't bad; on July 5 it was pretty good but it was very dark; on July 7 there was too much traffic noise; on July 9 it was pretty good. For "Leave the Naive Alone" June 26, and July 8, were pretty good but there was traffic noise; on June 28 it was pretty good but there was some traffic noise. This is synchronized in Movie Maker and I might listen there to find how much of the noise got through the mic audio; on July 2 it wasn't bad and it looked good with very little traffic noise; on July 4, 6, 10, 12, and 14 the battery was off by the time I played this song. So of all of the takes last year of "Leave the Naive Alone" the ones I've marked for re-reviewing are June 11, 16, 18, 26, 28, and July2. Of "Laisse tomber les filles" I'll re-review June 19, 25, July 3, and 9. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar while watching season 2, episodes 8 and 9 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Betty Joe's Japanese pen pal Nobuko has come to visit and plans to go to college in the United States. She arrives in traditional Japanese women's dress. She finds Joe doing work and tells him that in Japan women do all the work. That probably wasn't true in 1964. Billie is deliberately keeping Henry waiting for a date even though she is ready to go. He is sitting in the lobby feeling frustrated until Nobuko begins to pamper him. Later at a picnic Billie and Bobbie are mad because their boyfriends are giving all of their attention to Nobuko because she is always serving them. Kate takes Nobuko under her wing and teaches her how to flutter her eyes and pretend to be helpless so men will do all the work. 

            Nobuko was played by Aki Hara who was from the US and of mixed ethnicity. Her screen career lasted about four years. She made guest appearances on a few popular TV series and played a supporting role in the movie That Funny Feeling. 

            In the second story Homer Bedloe is having a recurring nightmare that he is tied to the front of the Cannonball while Kate is driving it and cackling like a stereotypical witch. His psychiatrist tells him the only solution is to learn to love the Cannonball. He arrives at the Shady Rest because Kate has requested that the C & FW Railroad put in new tracks. Bedloe is extremely nice and keeps saying he loves the Cannonball. But then he admits he has arranged for a crew to tear up the tracks without replacing them. Bedloe has told Kate about his nightmare and so she makes it come true and ties him to the train, then drives it and cackles until he agrees to repair the line. 

            Bedloe's assistant Evans was played by William O'Connell, who was frequently cast in Clint Eastwood movies. He played an Andorian named Thelev who stabs Kirk but ends up needing a blood transfusion from Spock on the Star Trek episode Journey to Babel.

June 29, 1993: I said goodnight to Elaine and kissed her intercepting cheek

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday I thought that I might be watching my daughter but Nancy decided not to come down. I did some cleaning and my laundry. I worked on Yehudah's astrological chart. I went out and made some photocopies of the Alphabet Orgy group poem and also of Moon charts from my astrology book. That afternoon I headed down to The Rivoli for my date with Elaine. I got there a little after 17:00 and sat writing while drinking a Red Baron. I finished transcribing all of my writing to the little book and was working on my derivative of the Orgy group poem when Elaine showed up a little after 18:00. She had a club soda and I had another beer and then we went to The Bamboo Club where she bought me dinner. We talked until 22:00 and then I rode with her to up to Dundas and kissed her goodbye on her intercepting cheek. I walked to The Last Temptation for the poetry open stage. I read two times and it seemed to go over well. I sang "Seven Shades of Blues" and got a big applause. I also recited my poem about my daughter.

My Child and the Kite of My Heart 

In frustration I go through the wreckage 

in the wake of my child's weekend raid 

and as I sigh neath the weight of the task at hand 

cut a path through the mess that she's made 

with each item put back in its proper place 

as the chaos is made to make sense 

both my home and my heart groan a little more 

in the hunger pangs of her absence 

My child throws her arms around my legs 

to shake the tangled kite of my heart 

back into her hands again 

On weeknights sometimes I wake up with a start 

and I notice that she isn't here 

then I call out her name but I get no response 

and charge into the dark flayed with fear 

But then I wake to the realization 

that's she's back with her mother tonight 

so I go back to bed in my empty home 

to wait till she comes back for her kite 

My child throws her arms around my legs 

to shake the tangled kite of my heart 

back into her hands again 

I stand as the voodoo idol 

that receives all the pins of her tears

that fly out when her mother's too busy for her 

and without warning her drops her off here 

It's a great tug of war with her love's wishbone 

and I always get the sharp end 

but she can't take a parent that seriously 

who competes with cartoons on the weekend 

I'm shut out from her life like the presents I've bought

that her mother throws out in the shed 

My child throws her arms around my legs 

to shake the tangled kite of my heart 

back into her hands again 

            I asked Tanya if she'd like to collaborate some time and read each other's poetry on the open stage. She said she'd be really into that.

Instructions for Electroshock Therapy: the Video

            In the late 1980s I was moving furniture for the Ontario Government and one day while clearing out an office at the old Lakeshore Mental Hospital I found in a desk a manual with the title "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy". The booklet contained step by step instructions for performing the procedure that now has the sugar coated name of electroconvulsive therapy. I took the manual and turned the instructions into a poem. In 1993 when I began performing my poetry in public this poem like many others came out of my voice in song form. Around 2003 my band Christian and the Lions made a studio recording of the song. Two years ago I started making a music video of the song, synchronizing the studio recording with old concert footage, adding some of my own animations of electric cords and creative placements of old movie samples. 

            I hope people watch it and comment. I'm very proud of this movie because I put a lot of work and a lot of creative energy into it and also because it's a very successful representation of the meaning of the song. 

Reginald Gardiner

            On Tuesday morning I worked out the chords to the first half of "Shanghai" by Serge Gainsbourg. I'll probably have it finished on Wednesday. 

            I video and audio recorded my song practice while playing the Kramer electric. I was feeling out of it today. I got through "Megaphor" in one take. There were probably mistakes but I felt they'd be worse if I redid it. It took me several takes to get through "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" because it kept going off the rails around the end of the eighth verse. I didn't finish it until part B of the battery's charge. When I started playing "The Accordion" a little ways into the song my B string broke. It's been years since I changed a string on the Floyd Rose tuning mechanism and I had a hell of a time getting the old string out because the little metal cube kept tilting instead of sliding out. I tried various things like sticking a narrow nail down and finally I got the string out and put a new one in. I need to get new high strings for both the Kramer and the Martin. Altogether changing and tuning the string took about an hour and so the rest of song practice was a write-off. Even though I didn't get to do a full set with the Kramer I did both of my own songs and so I'll consider that completing my two days with the electric and I'll play the Martin for the next two. 

            I weighed 85 kilos before breakfast an hour later than usual. 

            Around midday I used the hammer, the screwdriver and the putty knife to tear up the last of the tiles under the stove. They didn't seem to have been glued down very heavily compared with the ones I'd ripped up from the front of the counter. Large sheets of tile just lifted right off. It took me less time to remove those four tiles than it took to pull up one tile at the front. So now all the tiles that were left in the apartment are gone. Next I need to wash and scrub or maybe sand the residual glue from where the tiles had been. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos before lunch. 

            When I got up from my siesta it was raining a bit, but I flossed, sulkaed, mouthwashed and brushed anyway. By the time I was done it had let up and so I got ready and went out for my bike ride. Halfway along Maple Grove I realized I'd forgotten to put in my denture so I went back. Then I rode up Brock but the rain started coming down a little harder and so I decided to turn around just before Bloor and head home. It seemed to ease off again when I got back to College and so I stopped and considered going north again. But then it increased and so I continued home. When I got to Queen it was starting to pour. I like it when I have good instincts. 

            I weighed 85.1 kilos at 16:30, which is the heaviest I've been in the afternoon in eleven days.

            The rain let up at around 17:00 and so I took one of the amethyst rocks out back to chisel off some of the yellow. Two parts with crystals attached broke off and so I sent about half an hour breaking those up. I still have a rock about the size of a tennis ball with a good cluster of amethyst at one end and another that's three times bigger that is pretty much ringed by the crystals. That one probably needs to be broken up into two or three. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:42. 

            I reviewed what there was of the video of song practice that I shot this morning. I played "Megaphor" okay but my singing wasn't that great. I spent endless takes on "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" but the final one wasn't bad. The string broke just after I'd sung "In accord with the chords..." in the song "The Accordion". I should have turned the camera off sooner and not left it on to record my struggles with getting the old string out. But I wouldn't have had time to record by the time I was done anyway. 

            I reviewed the videos of my performances of "Laisse tomber les filles" and "Leave the Naive Alone" from June 17 to June 25, 2022. For "Laisse tomber les filles" on June 17 I paused at one point before continuing, the spit screen was on my chin, and there was traffic noise; on June 19 I played one of takes of the song up to this date, plus it's already synchronized in Movie Maker; on June 21 there was traffic noise and a couple of chords were off; on June 23 the battery had timed out on the previous song; on June 25 I played a pretty good version. For "Leave the Naive Alone" on June 18 the take I did was not bad but there was traffic noise; on June 20 I fumbled and finished it without a retake; on June 22 the camera battery had timed out before this song; and on June 24 there was too much traffic noise at the beginning. 

            In my "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" Movie Maker project I made one small change to my video. I switched the final lightning flash to one that was more horizontal and centred in the frame. Then I deleted all the extra clips from the timeline and published the movie. I uploaded it to YouTube and I hope people watch it and comment. I'm very proud of this movie because I put a lot of work and a lot of creative energy into it and also because it's a very successful representation of the meaning of the song. I plan to make videos of all of the songs that Brian and I recorded in the studio. 

            I barbecued two racks of pork ribs and had four or five with a potato and gravy while watching season 2, episodes 6 and 7 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Betty Joe wants to enter her nameless dog in a contest in which the winner gets $500 and appears in a dog food commercial. A picture of the dog is taken and Billie Joe takes it to be developed at the drug store. Henry the clerk is also entering his collie in the contest and he offers to send in the picture of Betty's dog. Betty receives word that her entry is one of the five finalists and the commercial director arrives with his cameraman. But then they learn that there's been a mix-up because Henry sent in the picture of his collie by mistake in Betty's envelope and it's his dog that was selected as a finalist. However, after staying at The Shady Rest and meeting Kate's charming family the director has the idea to use the Bradleys and their dog in a different dog food commercial. But when they finally shoot it after all of the problems that Joe causes by pretending to be an expert, the dog, who has always been fed fresh meat, backs away after smelling the dog food. Kate smells it and also finds it disgusting but Joe starts eating it with a spoon and tries to sell the director on a different commercial with the idea that if humans like it dogs will too. 

            In the second story Joe buys a buffalo with the idea of turning the Shady Rest into a hunting lodge for buffalo hunters. He contacts a famous big game hunter named Lord Faversham who has said the only game he has yet to hunt is the American buffalo. Faversham arranges to come to the Shady Rest. Joe has the girls dress in stereotypical First Nations attire while he's dressed like Davy Crockett as they wait for Faversham to arrive on the train. But Joe gets excited as the Cannonball is approaching and fires his gun, which spooks Bill the buffalo and he runs away. For the next three days Joe stalls Faversham. On the first day when Faversham wants to go buffalo hunting at 7:30 Joe tells him the herd comes down from the mountains at sunrise, grazes a while and then returns to the mountains. The next day Joe tells him they can't hunt buffalo because the wind is coming from the south east. Meanwhile Joe keeps looking for Bill but then learns that the girls already caught him and have been hiding him because they don't want him shot. So on the day of the hunt Joe loads Faversham's rifle with blanks and arranges for him to shoot from the Cannonball. When he shoots it Joe explains that he won't fall right away because of his thick hide and that the Native guides will gather the body. The girls keep leading Bill further along the tracks so that Faversham keeps thinking he's shooting a different buffalo each time. But after Faversham shoots him a third time the dog jumps out of the train window and goes to bark at the buffalo and Faversham sees the girls chasing him. To prevent Faversham from suing Joe he is given Bill to take back to England alive and to donate him to a zoo. 

            Faversham was played by Reginald Gardiner who after graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts became a star of the London stage. His first film appearance was as a dancer at a ball in Alfred Hitchcock's silent classic The Lodger. In 1935 he moved to the United States and performed in two Broadway plays and then a Broadway show called An Evening with Beatrice Lillie and Reginald Gardiner in which he did comical imitations of inanimate objects like wallpaper and lighthouses. His first Hollywood film was Born to Dance in which he played a traffic cop conducting an imaginary orchestra. He co-starred in The Doctor Takes a Wife, and The Flying Deuces. In the 60s he co-starred in the TV sitcom The Pruitts of Southampton. His monologue "Trains" was so famous that King George VI had him perform it for him at Buckingham Palace.

June 28, 1993: I called my father collect and he told me that my brother Allison got his kidney transplant

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I got up at around 9:30. I had an orange and then went out to call Nancy. She wasn't sure if she'd be coming down. While I was at the payphone I called Uplis Studios and got a model booking for August. I couldn't get through to Connie at the Ontario College of Art or Warren at Sheridan College. I went home to have breakfast and coffee and then went to the Ontario College of Art. Connie only had one job for me. I went to the model's room and made several calls. I went to a payphone and called my dad collect to wish him a belated happy Father's Day. He told me that my brother Allison finally got a kidney. I went home and cleaned up. I did some typing and astrological research and then left to check out a new poetry open stage at Avenue Road and Bloor. I couldn't find it so I headed home and wrote this on my way.

Bernie Kopell

            On Monday morning I worked out the chords for the third verse of "Que tu es impatiente, la mort" (Death You're So Impatient) by Boris Vian and the first verse of "Shanghai" by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I video and audio recorded song practice while playing the Kramer electric guitar. After four days of playing the Martin acoustic I have to get used to where the chords are again on the Kramer. I only did one take of "Megaphor" with a feeling that I could do it better but with experience that there was a good chance of doing it worse if I tried. I did a couple of takes of "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" and it's possible that it wasn't too bad. I'll find out later. I matched yesterday's record of making it into "Comme un boomerang" like I did yesterday. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I used a hammer and screwdriver to rip up the last tile in front of my stove. It came up so easy that I decided to pull out the stove and start tearing up the rest of the tiles. I ripped the now uncovered thirds of the two tiles that I'd removed in front of the stove. While I was working a mouse ran out from under the stove and dashed behind the counter. Before putting the stove back in place I duct taped the crack that the mouse had run through. I'm pretty sure I plastered the crack at the other end of the back of the counter last year, so maybe I trapped it, or maybe there's a way into Benji's place back there. 

            I weighed 85 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I spent another half hour chiseling the amethyst rocks. I decided to just break the smallest piece down to individual crystals. The second smallest piece I'm going leave as a cluster and just try to polish it as best as I can. I'll start chiseling the third piece tomorrow. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos at 17:30, which is the heaviest I've been at that time in ten days.

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

            I reviewed the video I shot this morning of my song practice. I don't think I was singing as well as usual today. I don't always like how the electric guitar sounds when I'm playing it at least in the camera microphone. I hit at least one wrong chord at the end of "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" and "La bas c'est natural". 

            I uploaded my June 28, 2022 recording of ""Annie C's Aniseed Suckers" to YouTube. I reviewed my performances of "Leave the Naïve Alone" and "Laisse tomber les filles" from June 11, 2022 to June 16. One thing I noticed about this song is that it sounds a lot better in a recording than it does while I'm playing it, even though it's a lot of fun to play. For "Leave the Naive Alone" June 11 was not bad; on June 13 the battery timed out before I got to this song; on June 15 it wasn't bad but the spit screen was in front of my face; on June 16 it was pretty good but the spit screen was on my chin and there was traffic noise. Of "Laisse tomber les filles" June 14 was not bad but the spit screen was often over my mouth. 

            In my "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" Movie Maker project I added the last clip of the MRI of a pulsing brain to correspond with the final drumbeat and flanked the pulse with two lightning flashes. The problem then was that after all of those pulses and lightning flashes my extended shout was over before the camera pans to Brian Haddon sitting up from the keyboard. So I cut out that last part of me with my mouth open and the shout peters out just as the camera pans away from me to Brian. Then after Brian sits up I added another flash of lightning before everything goes black and it's over. I watched the whole video and I think it's done. I can't publish it as a movie though until I've removed all of the clips that I've collected on my workbench at the end of the timeline. I deleted most of them but I'll check again tomorrow to see if I want to change anything, like maybe add a different lightning flash than the one I put at the end. 

            I had a potato with gravy and three chicken drumsticks while watching season 2, episodes 4 and 5 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story President Norman Curtis of the C & FW Railroad is making Vice President Homer Bedloe organize the annual meeting of the company's seventy stockholders at The Shady Rest. But while he's there he learns about Joe's plan to commemorate the signing of the treaty between the Umquaw Nation and the C & FW Railroad when they sold the land at Dead Man's Curve to allow the track to be laid down. Bedloe looks into it and discovers that the Umquaw never did sign the treaty. He persuades Umquaw Chief Fleeteagle and his son Black Salmon to set up a tepee on the three meter stretch of tracks in question. This means that the stockholders will have to walk twenty four kilometers to get to the Shady Rest. Bedloe's plan is that they will be so angry that they will vote the Cannonball out of existence. Later when the chief and his son are discussing the situation in private we learn that Bedloe pushed them into this protest with the promise of exclusive rights to sell souvenirs in C & FW Railroad stations. But then Joe and Sam bring guns and won't let the Umquaw leave the three meter stretch of land to buy food. Then they eat food in front of them. When Kate hears about this she puts a stop to it and brings a basket of food for the Umquaw. The chief and Kate hit it off and she convinces him to sign the treaty. Bedloe is threatened with jail for trying to coerce the Umquaw and Kate makes him agree to give them the souvenir contract. She also makes him wash all the dishes after the stockholders meeting. 

            Black Salmon was played by Bernie Kopell, who played Latinos in the first three years of his career. His first TV job was a small part in the soap opera The Brighter Day. He played Dr Adam Bricker on four different series: The Love Boat, The Love Boat the Next Wave, Charlie's Angels, and Martin. He played Siegfried the Vice President of Public Relations and Terror for KAOS on fourteen episodes of Get Smart, Alan-a-Dale on When Things Were Rotten, Louis Pallucci on The Doris Day Show, Charlie Miller on Needles and Pins. At the age of 90 he continues to work in film and television.

            In the second story the state election is coming up, although it is never mentioned what state Hooterville is supposed to be in. One assumes it's in the south since there was no snow and not even any bare trees in their Christmas episode. Hooterville holds a twenty year standing state record of being the first community in the state to vote and send their ballots to the state capital before any other. This year however Crabwell Corners has a voting machine and they are prepared to win. There is always food prepared for everyone who votes but this year Selma Plout learns that her rock hard donuts have been rejected. Her response is that she will vote in the afternoon, which would cause Hooterville to lose. In order to coax Selma back in she is presented with a scroll naming her voter of the year and gets her picture in the paper. The people of Hooterville are awakened before sunrise on election day to go to Sam's store to vote. They are sure they've beaten Crabwell Corners but when the votes are counted they are one short and it turns out that in all the excitement and running around Joe forgot to vote. Meanwhile Joe has gone to Crabwell Corners to rub in Hooterville's victory. Kate tells him he has to come back to vote. Fortunately Crabwell Corners' voting machine has broken down and Joe comes back so Hooterville can win. Joe has in his pocket a crucial part from Crabwell Corners' voting machine.

June 27, 1993: I bought my daughter a coin eating monster

Thirty years ago today 

            On Sunday I left for work at 9:00. I had plenty of time to get to Steve Timmins's place but I screwed up because I forgot that Dundas curves east from Roncesvalles and I kept on walking south. Anyway I was only seven minutes late but Steve hadn't been expecting me because he'd thought that I'd been booked for the Sunday before. However no other model showed up and so I posed for the session and got $35 cash. I checked out a garage sale in that neighbourhood and then I went to Main and while walking home I stopped at another where I bought a coin eating monster for my daughter. Then I went to Queen Street and bought the pen that I used to write this. I went home to do some writing and typing, then I watched TV and went to bed at around 3:00 on Monday.

Dianne Foster

            On Sunday morning I finished memorizing "Shanghai" by Serge Gainsbourg and looked for the chords. No one has posted them and so tomorrow I'll start working them out. I think it's a pretty simple song so it shouldn't take long. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar while recording song practice. I think I did better than usual with all the songs and I broke this years record of how many I got through before the battery timed out. I didn't get cut off until the second verse of "Like a Boomerang". Twenty more days left in this year's recording project and then I'll just relax and practice the songs without any pressure until next June. Hopefully from among all these recordings there'll be at least a few takes good enough that after I upload them I'll feel like I can start practicing new songs. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I used a hammer and screwdriver to rip up another kitchen tile. There's just one more in front of the stove but there are four more under the stove. I was going to leave those alone but two of them show a bit at the side and so I might as well pull the stove out and remove the rest. 

            Many years ago the landlord installed a thermostat in the hallway outside my door but what has bugged me about it is that the temperature has been set at Fahrenheit for all this time. Today I finally decided to do something about it and looked up how to change a Honeywell thermostat to Celsius. I had to find instructions for this really old model because the more modern thermostats have a Menu button. I found out that one has to press both the up and down arrows at the same time, then number 1 is displayed, then again and number 5, then again and number 13, then finally again and 14 shows up. On the lower right from the 14 is a 0 indicating Fahrenheit. I had to then push the up button to change it to 1, and then push the "Run" button. Then the temperature changed to Celsius just in time for Canada Day next week. 

            I weighed 85 kilos before lunch. I had Triscuits with labneh and a glass of limeade.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. The Gay Pride parade was going down Yonge and though I walked my bike along with it last year and found it interesting, I also found it time consuming. This time I went down St Nicholas and then went to Bay and then south. Then I saw that Dundas was blocked off for the parade and was surprised at first until I remembered that there's construction at Yonge and Queen for the new subway. I went over to University and then south to Queen and headed west for home. 

            I chiseled some more of the smallest amethyst rock. A lot of crystals broke off. Some of the outer ones are discoloured with yellow. I don't know if they were like that before or if it was the vinegar that did it. 

            I weighed 84.1 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:16. 

            I reviewed the video I shot of song practice this morning and it was really one of my best sets ever. I think I played a pretty good take of Megaphor. Only one chord in Sixteen Tons of Dogma was slightly off and most of the other songs that made it onto the memory card turned out not bad as well. 

            In my "Annie C's Aniseed Suckers" Movie Maker project I deleted everything before the beginning of the song and everything after, then I published it. But when I watched the final product I saw that I'd also published a false start along with the full song. So I went back and deleted the first attempt at the song and tried to publish the successful one under the same name. But unlike most files Movie Maker doesn't give the option of overriding a title and wants one to use a different name. I didn't want to do that and so I had to go and delete the first movie in order to be able to give the second one the same name. By that time it was too late to upload it to YouTube. I'll do that tomorrow. 

            In my "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" Movie Maker project I added three more video clips of the MRI of a pulsing brain, each one corresponding to a heart-like drumbeat near the end of the song; and flanking each pulse with lightning flashes. But the last of the three didn't pulse on the beat, so I removed the flash before it and added a longer one. That brought the pulse in time with the beat and I put the lightning flash that I'd removed at the end of that pulse. I have one more pulse to add with a flash on each side of it, then the plan is to have a lightning flash be the last image in the video. I might have the whole two-year-long video project finished tomorrow. It's been so long that it hardly seems possible that it will be completed. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episodes 2 and 3 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story, Elsie is coming to stay at the Shady Rest while her husband Henry is on a three day trip. This was arranged because Elsie is pregnant and due in a couple of weeks and Henry wants someone to take care of her while he's away. Just in case the baby comes early, and since the hotel has no telephone to call the doctor, Joe sets up an elaborate signalling system. He gives Elsie a little bell to ring that will wake him. He will then go outside with his shotgun and fire it into the air twice. Ben Miller at the next farm will hear it and fire his shotgun twice. Fred Ziffel's wife will hear it and wake Fred, then he'll fire his shotgun. Knut will hear that and fire his shotgun which will alert Sam Drucker who will wake up Floyd and Charlie. Floyd will start the Cannonball while Charlie goes to get the doctor. It sounds like a great plan but Joe decides to do a test run in the middle of the night without telling anyone. Needless to say the doctor is very angry when he gets there. Then Ben Miller has to go away and leave his grandfather in charge, who is hard of hearing. Joe says he'll start a signal fire to alert him but again he does a test run in the wee hours without warning and once again the doctor rushes there for nothing. The next night Elsie really does ring her bell but all of Joe's wood is wet so he can't start a signal fire. Betty Joe takes the hand car along the tracks to Miller's farm, gets Ben's shotgun and fires. But when word gets to Charlie and Floyd they don't believe it's not another test run and so Sam has to wake the doctor. By the time they get there Kate has delivered the baby and Joe has fainted. 

            In the second story Kate organizes turning the baggage car of the Cannonball into a library and the attractive Phillis Marsh is hired to be the librarian. Joe is immediately smitten with the much younger woman and goes to see her any chance he gets. He takes her fishing after he tries to dye his grey hair with black shoe polish but it runs all over his face in the heat. Phillis agrees to meet Joe for a soda but then her fiancé Hal arrives unexpectedly and she has to explain the situation to him. She feels the need to be kind to Joe because he's been nice to her and he built all the bookshelves for her library. Hal agrees to wait as she meets Joe for a soda. The next day Kate meets Phillis at Sam's store and they discuss the Joe problem. Kate comes up with a plan involving Hal. They pretend to be lovers and Joe finds them doing the twist together in the hotel lobby. Hal comes to take Kate for a walk in the moonlight but Joe is worried about her being with a younger man and so he doesn't go to meet Phillis and stays to watch Kate. The next day Joe introduces Hal to Phillis and they hit it off right away, kissing each other before he'd finished the introduction. 

            Phillis was played by Canadian actor Dianne Foster, who showed promise in high school theatre and majored in drama at the University of Alberta. After college she worked in Toronto as a model and as a radio and stage actor. She was already a radio star in Canada when she played Bianca in Orson Welles's production of Othello. After supporting parts as bad girls in British B movies she went to Hollywood where her first role was as a British character in an episode of Four Star Playhouse. This won her a contract with Columbia Pictures. Her first US movie was a co-starring role in the film noir "Bad for Each Other". She then co-starred in "Three Hours to Kill", "The Violent Men", "The Brothers Rico", "The Deep Six", "Gideon of Scotland Yard", "The Last Hurrah", "Drive a Crooked Road", "The Kentuckian", and "The Big Bankroll". In the mid-sixties she was offered the role of Fred MacMurray's new wife on the sitcom "My Three Sons" but turned it down and retired from acting to raise her family and to paint.

June 26, 1993: I got off the train in Mimico and walked to the Lancaster to watch the strippers

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I got up at 6:30 and had plenty of time to get to Union Station to catch the 7:43 train to Oakville. The Sheridan College class I was scheduled to pose for started three-quarters of an hour late. Another model showed up, I assume he was someone who lived in Oakville and would go in on the chance that the scheduled model didn't make it in from Toronto. He left when he saw me there. I worked until 16:30 and then went to Harvey's. I did some writing and caught the 17:30 eastbound train but I got of at the Mimico Station and walked over to the House of Lancaster to watch the dancers. It was kind of boring this time but I had three beers and then went to the nearby porn store and bought a couple of magazines. I then went home and looked at the magazines while whacking off. For the rest of the day I flaked out. I ate some ice cream and drank the rest of my beer.

Ken Osmond

            On Saturday morning I memorized the second verse of "Shanghai" by Serge Gainsbourg. There are two verses left and I pretty much know the final verse without trying to remember it, so I'll either have the song nailed down on Sunday or Monday. 

            I recorded song practice and played the Martin acoustic. It's a happy coincidence for the last three days that I've had no song cut off when the battery times out for part A of the session. Lately it has stopped recording just after I've finished playing a song. I did several takes of "La bas c'est natural" because this year I've changed the ending and I go way up the neck to hit a chord twice that I'm not used to hitting on that song. Part B got cut off while I was starting "La jambe de bois". 

            I weighed 84.7 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I've been in the morning in thirty five days. 

            Around midday I went down to No Frills where the cherries were on sale and so I bought seven bags. I also got a pack of strawberries, bananas, a rack of pork ribs, a bag of naan, three bags of milk, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, a jug of orange juice, and two small containers of PC skyr. I wanted two of the large containers but they seem to run out quickly. I find the PC skyr to be less sour and thicker than the Siggis brand. I also got a container of a Turkish product called labneh. It was very expensive but curiosity got the best of me. It's apparently strained yogourt with salt and it's considered to be a type of spreadable cheese. I looked up and down the personal aisle for razors and spent so much time on my search that by the time I found out they are locked in a cabinet at the front beside the customer service desk I was too tired to want to ask for them. I also got Vaseline. I only noticed a few months ago that they've started calling it "healing jelly" rather than "petroleum jelly" I assume because of the negative associations that currently exist in the world towards the oil industry. 

            I washed a pair of shorts and put them out on the deck to dry. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before lunch. I had Triscuits with some labneh. It's okay but it needs accompaniment to have any flavour so I added paprika. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 84 kilos at 16:45. That's the lightest I've been at that time in seventy one days. 

            I chiseled some more of the amethyst rock and broke the smallest rock in two. Lots of crystals came off. There doesn't seem to be much chance of breaking off the ugly brown parts without separating all the crystals. My goal was for them to all be in a cluster. David came out of the fire escape and chatted. He thought that the rock was jade. He says he's going to show me his rocks. He asked for one of the little pieces I'd broken off and so I gave him a shiny one. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:17. 

            I reviewed the video that I shot of song practice this morning. The final take of "Megaphor" might be okay. I'm still getting the chords wrong for the end of Sixteen Tons of Dogma. The last takes for "Le temps des yé-yé", "L'accordion", "Joanna", and "La bas c'est natural" might be okay. "Mamadou" seemed particularly good. 

            I imported the audio recording of my June 29, 2022 song practice into Audacity and amplified the volume. I imported the amplified audio for that date and the video for part B of that day's session into Movie Maker. I cut out part A from the audio and synchronized the audio with the video. Then I started a new project for the take of "Annie C's Aniseed Suckers" that I performed on that date. I'll probably have it uploaded to YouTube tomorrow. 

            In my Instructions for Electroshock Therapy Movie Maker project I added a different visual effect to each of the last few clips of Brian Haddon singing "shock therapy" so they don't look the same. I then converted all of the lightning clips that I'd gathered at the end of the timeline into grey scale. I moved the first of the video clips of the MRI of the pulsing brain in profile into the main video to correspond with the first drum beat that comes after I begin my final shout of "shock therapeeee". Luckily the pulse and the beat were synchronized on my first try. Then I moved the first lightning flash in front of the pulsing brain and fortunately adding the clip served to push the pulse even more in sync with the beat. So far so good. Four beats to go. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the first season finale and the second season premier of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story retired school teacher Miss Keane is coming to stay at The Shady Rest. She had been both Billie Joe and Bobbie Joe's teacher and had been at the job so long she'd even been Kate's teacher. She was so strict that they had all nicknamed her Genghis Keane. Everyone steels themselves for her stern ways but when she arrives she is extremely meek and humble. For some reason Kate wants to snap her out of it and she tries various things but the thing that works is when she has Betty Joe ask her for help with her homework. Once Keane is in teaching mode again she reverts back to her old disciplinary self to an intolerable degree. For instance she tells paying guests that they can't sit down for dinner unless they've shaved. Guests are checking out because of her. When she notices this she becomes meek again but Kate can't stand to see her broken and so she convinces her that no one left because of her. Kate arranges for the coach of the cannonball to be a rolling night classroom for many of the adults in the valley who did not finish grade school. Billie charms a boyfriend named Harold Boggs into signing up, even though Miss Keane is the reason why he dropped out of school. With so many students Miss Keane decides to move out of the Shady Rest so she can be near the library in Hooterville. 

            Harold Boggs was played by Ken Osmond who is most famous for playing the slimy scheming teenage devil Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver. He was the teenager that everyone loved and wanted to punch in the face at the same time. Particularly memorable was the creepy way he would compliment June Cleaver's appearance whenever he saw her. His first film appearance was as an extra in "Plymouth Adventure". He was 14 when he was cast as Eddie Haskell and he was an extremely popular and iconic character. But after six seasons, when the show ended his character was so remembered that he was type cast and couldn't get much work. He joined the LAPD and was a cop until he retired from the vice squad with a disability pension after having been wounded three times in the line of duty. He returned to play Haskell in all of the reunion shows and short lived spin offs. He worked handling rental properties in LA and was a special effects supervisor for Babylon 5. 

            In the second story it's the first day of school after the summer break. Billie Joe is starting secretarial school while Bobbie Joe and Betty Joe are still in high school. After school there are several dogs waiting outside for their caregivers and leave with them as they emerge. Betty leaves last and says hello to one lone shaggy dog that is there. I'm pretty sure it's the same dog that played Sheba near the end of the first season. The dog follows Betty to the Cannonball and runs after the train all the way to The Shady Rest. The fact that the dog has a collar and knows an incredible amount of tricks tells Kate that it already has a caregiver and so she tells Betty she can't keep it. She makes Betty take it back to town on the next train. She does so but it follows her again, sneaks onto the caboose and rides back to the hotel. Kate tries to take it back by walking along the tracks but the dog begins to limp so Kate carries him back. He continues to limp until he sees Betty Joe and then begins to run and so obviously was faking. Kate decides they can keep him until someone answers the ad she put in the paper. Meanwhile the dog causes trouble by sleeping in Joe's rocker and kicking dirt onto clean laundry that's on the line. Then when a skunk comes into the window the dog chases it into their only guest's room and it sprays everything. Kate decides to let the girls keep him anyway.

June 25, 1993: My daughter preferred her toy shovel over her toy hockey stick

Thirty years ago today 

            On Friday after getting up and having breakfast I went out to call Nancy. I agreed to come up to Scarborough to get my daughter. I played with her there for a while and then gradually we went outside and down the street. Between her toy shovel and her toy hockey stick she seemed to prefer the shovel. We played in the playground at Bamburgh before finally catching the bus. Instead of getting off at Main Station we went to Coxwell and caught the bus to Queen because I wanted stop at the liquor store. I let her pick what beer I bought again. At my place she played with the hose and then we went to the playground. I got her to eat a couple of mouthfuls of vegetable stew but she mostly ate a slice of bread and some Shreddies. She went to sleep at 20:00 and Nancy came to pick her up at around 23:00.

Don Dubbins

            On Friday morning I memorized the first verse of "Shanghai" by Serge Gainsbourg and almost the second. There are only three verses left and no chorus so it shouldn't take more than three more days to nail it down. 

            I video and audio recorded song practice while playing the Martin acoustic guitar as I'll do for a couple more days before playing the Kramer electric again for two more and so on. I did several takes of "Megaphor" and "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" until I made it to the end. I was almost finished a take of Sixteen Tons of Dogma during part A of the session but the battery timed out just before the end. So I did it again and finished it in part B. There's quite a treacherous balance between trying to have fun with a song and trying to concentrate in order not to screw it up. My French translations are less problematic to play but I also fumble them. There's a better chance that I'll have a few of those worth uploading so I can move on to new material. 

            I weighed 85.1 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I've been in the morning in ten days.

            Around midday I used the hammer and screwdriver to rip up another tile from the front of the kitchen counter. There's one more in front of the counter and another in front of the stove. The depression in the kitchen floor is all filled in but now I'll have to sand down the boards that are slightly higher than the floor. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before lunch. 

            When I got up from my siesta it was raining a bit, but it shortly let up so I started getting ready for a bike ride. Then it started a bit again and then eased off, so I headed out. It was misting as I rode up Brock and it became heavier as I went east along the Bloor bike lane. I was thinking it might get worse and was ready to head south but it came down lighter and so I continued downtown and back. 

            I washed and brushed the smallest of the amethyst rocks and then took it out on the deck to chisel it a bit. I unintentionally knocked off a few amethyst crystals. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos at 17:30. That's the heaviest I've been at that time in a week. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:10. 

            I reviewed the video I shot this morning of song practice. There was one wrong chord at the end of Megaphor. My final take of Sixteen Tons of Dogma wasn't too bad. The Final takes of "The Time of the Yo-Yo", "The Accordion" and "Joanna" seemed okay. 

            I uploaded the video of my performance of "les sucettes" to YouTube. 

            In my "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" Movie Maker project, before lunch I'd copied the rest of the lightning clips and pasted them at the end of the timeline. This evening I removed the last of the snakes clip from one of the lightning clips I'd copied from the beginning of the video. I tried to see how the spin effect would work with one of the lightning clips but it doesn't because those clips have an upper and lower frame and when they spin, so does the frame and it looks odd. I went into the main video to add some effects to the clips of Brian Haddon singing "shock therapy" and I saw and heard to my dismay that the video and the audio were a couple of seconds out of sync. It showed Brian singing the final "shock therapy" shout in my voice. I had a crisis on my hands because my perfectly synchronized video was now out of whack. I tried to cut out bits of Brian's clip but then I understood that I needed to check the whole video to find out exactly where it went out of sync, so I undid the cuts. I watched the video and it didn't go out of sync until after the second instrumental, which is where I'd copied the second group of lightning clips. I was thinking that I must have accidentally cut a lightning clip instead of copying it. So I added the first clip from that batch but it didn't help. Then I stopped to think. If the video was behind the audio that means I need to remove some of the video. So I must have added clips to the video when I tried to paste them on the end of the timeline. I looked closely at the instrumental section and when I put my cursor over the first three lightning clips I saw that they were all three .57 seconds. Looking closer I saw that they were all identical. I must have accidentally pasted the first clip twice in the main video. I removed clips two and three and everything was back in sync. That was a relief. It took a lot of time though. With the last few minutes I had before dinner I listened to how many heart-like drumbeats there are at the end of the song and there are five. At the end of the timeline I looked at the pulsing brain clips and counted six pulses. Then I started putting lightning clips on each side of the pulses but I had to quit for dinner. I'll work on it some more tomorrow. 

            I had a small potato with gravy and three chicken drumsticks while watching season 1, episodes 36 and 37 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Kate receives a telegram from Vice President Brooks Webster of Groverdale Lumber, Gravel and Soft Drinks. He's coming to investigate the facilities for a possible convention of forty company salesmen. I don't think we've seen more than two or three guests at the Shady Rest Hotel in this first season of the show. Joe has found a cave that he thinks could be easily used for a wine cellar and he shows it to Kate. While she's inside he sees embedded above the entrance a horseshoe that he lost a year ago. He thinks it's a sign of good luck and he pulls it out, which causes a dirt and rock slide and a very large boulder falls down to cover the entrance of the cave. Kate is trapped and the boulder is too big for any men that Joe could bring so he has to hike to Ding Woodhouse's farm to get him to bring his tractor. But Ding is repairing his tractor and it won't be ready until the next morning. Meanwhile Webster arrives hungry and Kate is not there to work her magic in the kitchen. At another section of the cave there is a hole big enough for Kate to stick her head out of. They bring a camp stove near the cave and have Billie Joe cook a meal for Webster while following Kate's precise directions. They have to run each course from the cave to the hotel and make it look like someone is cooking it in the kitchen. Webster says it's the best food he's ever had. The next morning Kate is freed from the cave and Webster finds her outside. He says he's just the advance man and the decision about the convention is up to President Feisal and he'll be arriving in the morning. Now that Kate is free they think it will be a cinch for her to win Feisal over but on the way back from the cave Kate trips and sprains her ankle. 

            The second story continues exactly after the previous one. Kate is helped back to the hotel and up to her room. The doctor comes and tells her she has to stay in bed for three days. Billie Joe, Betty Joe and Joe insist they can run the hotel without her and so she agrees to let them. But with Kate out of control Joe suddenly wants to repaint the hotel fancy colours such as lavender combined with magenta like the Hilton Istanbul. Joe also hires a singer named Elgin Harner the Smoky Mountain Songbird to entertain at the convention. The hotel is a mess because of renovations but Feisal arrives a day early. The first thing he wants is a hot bath but Joe neglects to tell him he broke the water heater that morning. The food the girls cook isn't any better and Betty Joe puts too much starch in Feisal's laundry. The last chance is for Elgin to sing for Feisal but it turns out he only knows "On Top of Old Smoky" and it's the one song that Feisal hates. He checks out the next morning. The doctor comes to check on Kate and miraculously her ankle is fine but she decides to stay in bed and pretend it's not fine so as to give her family a chance to prove themselves. They put on a record and make noises downstairs to make Kate think the convention is happening but she gets up and sees otherwise. That night Feisal returns at dinnertime and says he's decided to have the convention there anyway because the salesmen are trainees and need to experience a lousy hotel with horrible food to toughen them up. But then he tastes Kate's chicken and dumplings and is very disappointed because it's the best food he's ever had. 

            Smokey was played by Don Dubbins, whose first screen appearance was on the 1952 TV series The Doctor. In the 1950s James Cagney took a liking to him and had him co-star as his son in Tribute to a Bad Man with also a role in another Cagney film called These Wilder Years. He then co-starred in The D.I.

June 24, 1993: Leah the obese teen runaway I'd sheltered 20 years before was now a gorgeous stripper

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I did my laundry. I went out and made photocopies of the group poem that I was calling The Alphabet Orgasm but later would name The Gumby Bible. I also made copies from my astrology book. A few days before that I had run into Leah who I'd known twenty years before when she was an obese little runaway who I let crash in my place with her friend and who burned a hole in my Hudson Bay blanket with her cigarette. A few days before this day I ran into her and she was not only no longer overweight but she was gorgeous and working as an exotic dancer. We'd exchanged numbers and on this day I called her but she gave me the brush off because she was busy moving. I then called Marie and got basically the same thing. I called Mike Copping at work but he said he wouldn't be coming to Mudds Cabaret that night. I did some darkroom work and left for Mudds at 22:00. I got to Mudds a little after 23:00 and nothing had started. I was the third reader on the open stage and it went well. I also read the Alphabet Orgasm from the previous week and got everyone to applaud themselves for having written it: 

Warm juicy mess, she loved it 

and again triggered the swamp sweet source 

blood red, all over my fries 

over all my fries, red, blood red, blood red

rendering me indescribably blue- 

bluish light of the flames that burned Joan 

o man, we're on the front line 

running past all the wrong signs 

Take me to a place, I'm looking for a place 

but which way at the fork? 

Nothing making sense, hell filling donut 

I am profound as a toad, smog-lipped crumpet

hanging human, the sticky retracting cock 

I'm too much of a voyeur to commit suicide 

I do not wish to hang vasected 

I wish to hang tongue-tied by my words 

sanctimonious, indulgent shit--help keep it alive!! 

Crying alone, clutching my bloodied fries... 

Stop! You're making me want to scream! 

A clean shaven nightmare is good as a dream 

it takes so much longer to grow it back afterwards though 

Begun again, he's scraping it off the dream 

scraggling about the abode with flow

yeah, and it's all here when the symbols are shattered? 

To dream a dream of death alone 

tacky, tacky, tacky, tack, tack, talk-talk 

oh yeah, oh yeah, shake your booty! 

Do you walk to school, or do you take your lunch

to push down the throats of all readers' hope? 

I'd like to spread my body so it touches all angles of the Earth 

I'd like to take your body so it touches all the phallic symbols 

I'd like to take your body, take my body 

create the body everybody craves 

and loves and leaves for another 

What matters more or less? 

We begin again with another mess 

Let hope be born from endless chaos 

Isn't endless chaos a contradiction in terms? 

            There were a lot of readers. Tom Smarda was supposed to read eighth but he was forgotten until I reminded Martin.