Elena Verdugo

            On Thursday morning I blog-published "Love Child Lulu", my translation of "Lulu" by Serge Gainsbourg. Then I listened a couple of times to his song "Shanghai" while transcribing some the repetitions that weren't in the lyrics that I downloaded. 

            I video and audio recorded song practice playing the acoustic guitar. I've been alternating two days with the acoustic and two days with the electric but this time I'll play the Martin four days because otherwise some songs won't get played on both instruments. In additions to the songs that I do every day there are four songs and their translations that I play over an eight day cycle. If I play the Kramer and the Martin two days in a row each then I will end up playing the same instrument for each of those songs. So I'll play the Martin four days so it changes the instrument for the next cycle and then I guess I'll have to play the Kramer four days to change it back again and so on. I made it through Megaphor after a few failed takes, but I basically only did one take of Sixteen Tons of Dogma. I know I made mistakes but none that made me cringe. I matched my record of making it to the chorus of Baby Pop before the camera battery timed out. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            I glued down the last three pieces of fiber board to fill up the depression in my kitchen floor. While I squeezed the tube of construction glue a hole appeared at the bottom and I got the stuff all over my hands. It took several washings with soap, detergent, baking soda and rubbing with a wet cloth to stop my hands from sticking. I put two wide books of the same thickness on top of the boards and weighted them with my Jazz Chorus amplifier. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. I bought strawberries, blueberries, bananas, five bags of cherries, two packs of five-year-old cheddar, a jug of limeade, Nabob coffee, Basilica sauce, salsa, kettle chips, a lint roller, a tub of It's Not Butter, and a pack of razors. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos at 17:30. 

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

            I reviewed the video I shot this morning of song practice. I think I played the wrong chord in the final take of Megaphor. Sixteen Tons of Dogma went okay until a little way into the epilogue. Some of the other songs seemed to have good takes. 

            I compared the June 26, 2022 video of my performance of "Annie C's Aniseed Suckers" to the one on June 28 of the same year and I think I played it better on June 28. I compared June 28 to July 2 and I played it better on June 28. I compared June 28 to July 8 and July 8 has too much traffic noise and so I'll upload the June 28 take. I saved a copy of the June 19, 2022 song practice project in Movie Maker as "Les sucettes". I synchronized it a little more because there was too much echo, then I isolated the song. It's ready to be made into a movie and I'll upload it to YouTube tomorrow.

            In my "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" Movie Maker project I copied the lightning from the intro of the video and put it on the end of the timeline. I cut out all of the snake clips that were alternating with the lightning. I also gathered about half the lightning clips from the second instrumental section and put those at the end as well. I'll get the rest tomorrow and then figure out how I want the lightning to be arranged around the pulsing brain clips. I might try the effect of a 360 degree turn for the lightning clips and see how that looks. 

            I had a small potato with gravy and three chicken drumsticks while watching season 1, episodes 34 and 35 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Homer Bedloe returns to The Shady Rest with his son Homer Bedloe Jr. Junior has just graduated from Yale where he was voted the meanest and most hated student in Yale history. He's a chip of the old block. Homer tells Junior that he hates the Cannonball even more than he hates Junior's mother. Homer's plan is to leave Junior at the Shady Rest and have him fool the Bradley family into letting their guard down while he gathers incriminating information. Joe tells him they don't care for legal technicalities and Charlie and Floyd tell him they've never been visited by the Interstate Commerce Commission which controls the licensing of commercial vehicles. Charlie and Floyd stop the train on the railroad bridge and Junior is thrilled that he catches a fish. He also dances with the Bradley sisters and starts to change. He confesses to Kate the plan he's been following and she convinces him to be honest and nice. He tries to communicate that epiphany to his father who drags him off to their psychiatrist. 

            In the second story the President Mary Jane Hastings of Hastings Enterprises comes to the Shady Rest and rents three rooms, one to use as an office. Joe has convinced her that they have modern communication facilities but they have no phone. He plans to use Hector the homing pigeon to fly to Hank Folson's farm ten kilometers away because Hank has a phone. Mary Jane arrives with her assistant Steve who obeys her every command. She demonstrates an ability to get any man to follow her orders and it impresses the Bradley sisters. They begin to emulate her and Mary Jane enlists the girls to do some planning for her because she is scheduled to accept a chamber of commerce award in a week and she wants also to visit some old friends. The girls enthusiastically get to work helping Mary Jane. Meanwhile Billie and Bobbie's boyfriends Roger and Phil want the girls to go to the dance with them but the girls make the boys follow their orders so they will have time to fit them in. Kate doesn't like how her daughters are behaving and she blames Steve for setting an example of a submissive man. Steve confesses to Kate that he is in love with Mary Jane. Kate advises him to assert himself with Mary Jane but the result is that she fires him. Kate confronts Mary Jane who confesses that she is in love with Steve. Somehow the message seems to be that a woman in control of men is unnatural and Kate convinces Mary Jane to go after Steve before he leaves. Mary Jane makes Steve the boss of her company and promises to follow his orders from now on. Billie and Bobbie do the same with Roger and Phil. Then Kate orders Joe to get to work on his chores. 

            Mary Jane was played by Elena Verdugo who began dancing when she was in kindergarten. She appeared in her first movie at the age of six in "Cavalier of the West". She began dancing in films in her teens. She recorded the song "Tico Tico" as a singer for Xavier Cugat. After gaining acting roles in her twenties she co-starred in "Desperate Men" and "The Big Sombrero". She starred on the 50s radio sitcom "Meet Millie" and then four seasons on the TV version. She played Consuela Lopez on "Marcus Welby MD" from 1969 to 1976 for which she was nominated for an Emmy.