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.