Smiley Burnette

            On Monday morning I memorized the chorus of "Lulu" by Serge Gainsbourg. It's a song for Gainsbourg's youngest child and sung by Lulu's mother Bambou. Lulu is now also a singer and has done duets with Feist and with Iggy Pop, among others. 

            I recorded song practice with the acoustic guitar this time. I did several takes of "Megaphor" and also several of "Sixteen Tons of Dogma". For "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" I made it all the way to the epilogue before screwing up the chords. It's the same story as last year. I've been playing those two songs every day for a few years and it amazes me that I have yet to master them. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I've been in the morning in two weeks. 

            I took the construction block off the piece of plywood that I'd construction glued into the depression in my kitchen floor after weighing it down for a day. I glued the next piece and then put the block on top of that. 

            Then I swept the apartment to prepare for Cole Webber to come tomorrow afternoon to talk to me and other tenants about community organizing. I think Sean is coming and maybe Shankar. David would be there if his schedule didn't clash. 

            I weighed 86.4 kilos before lunch and that's the most I've weighed at that time this year. It's six-tenths of a kilo heavier than this time last year. 

            I took a siesta and slept twelve minutes longer than usual. When I got up it was still raining like it had been all day. I had a long bowel movement and then saw the rain had stopped, but it was already after 16:00. I decided to get ready and take a short ride anyway. I went to Bloor and Dovercourt and turned right. Just south of the corner a woman was sitting and talking and I was surprised she was talking on a payphone. In 2019 there were 31,500 payphones in Toronto and each one averaged about $374 a year. The number of phones dropped by half from 2015, so maybe now there are only 16,000. I stopped at Home Hardware to buy a bottle of Murphy's Oil Soap to mop my floors with tomorrow. 

            I spent half an hour chiseling rock away from my amethyst. Only small pieces are flying off and so I'm probably hammering at iron ore. 

            I weighed 85.8 kilos at 17:45. That's the heaviest I've been at that time in nine days. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:38. I reviewed the video I shot this morning. It was dark because of the rain and I'd put on the lamp on the left but turned it to face the wall because I thought it would bounce off and generate more light. It did but it was too glaring. I should have kept it turned toward the bookcase. I almost did a good take of Sixteen Tons of Dogma until the end. 

            I worked on synchronizing the mic audio with the camera microphone's audio of my July 15 song practice from last year and got them to the point where there's an echo. I should have them together tomorrow or Wednesday and I'll decide whether I want to keep a little echo or not. 

            I cut out about thirty minutes of Faust on the timeline of my Movie Maker project for my song Instructions for Electroshock Therapy. Probably on Wednesday I'll remove another half an hour. 

            I had a potato with gravy and the last chicken leg while watching season 1, episodes 14 and 15 of Petticoat Junction. In the first story Christmas is approaching. Herby gets two kisses from Billie Joe under the mistletoe and Sam gets one from Kate. Both guys act like they are drunk after the kisses. Everyone is preparing to decorate the Cannonball with Christmas lights for the annual caroling run and the distribution of food and presents for the needy. But Homer Bedloe has other plans. He tells President Norman Curtis of the C &FW railroad that he's going to do a surprise inspection of a branch of their line but doesn't tell him where he's going. He goes to Hooterville and shuts down the train because decorating it with Christmas lights is in violation of the company rules. Kate keeps trying to infect Bedloe with the Christmas spirit with eggnog and her daughters singing carols to him but it's not helping. Back at C &FW Curtis learns where Bedloe went and gets in a helicopter to go and save Kate. After landing he gets dirty again coming through the bushes and when he arrives at the Shady Rest everyone still thinks he's a hobo. He asks for a minute alone with Bedloe and in the next scene Curtis has Bedloe in a Santa suit. The Cannonball is decorated and everyone rides it singing carols. 

            In the second story Herby gets drafted and Kate organizes a going away party for him. He's upset about the conscription but Kate encourages him and he starts to think that a military career could lead to being an astronaut and becoming the first man on the Moon. He leaves but six nights later he knocks on Kate's kitchen window and reveals to her that he was discharged after six days because of a bad knee and a bad back. He's embarrassed to face everyone after the big sendoff. Kate puts him up in her attic while she figures what to do. She writes a headline article for Sam Drucker's newspaper saying that Herby has been discharged due to an undisclosed injury and is returning as a hero. Kate has to get Herby from the attic to the Cannonball so he can arrive for his big welcome. She cross dresses him and takes him out. On the platform Billie Joe sees Herby as a girl and thinks she's a romantic rival. The train arrives and Herby sneaks on the back and changes clothes but forgets to remove the lipstick. When Billie sees him she is jealous because she thinks the girl snuck onto the Cannonball and kissed him. She wipes the lipstick off, which is exactly her shade, and replaces the other girl's kiss with her own. 

            Herby Bates was played by Canadian actor Don Washbrook, who had guest appearances in a few other TV series and supporting roles in a few movies. His brother was Johnny Washbrook who starred in the TV series My Friend Flicka. 

            Charlie Pratt the Cannonball engineer was played by Smiley Burnette, who worked in local radio after high school and then Vaudeville. He could play 100 instruments proficiently but couldn't read music. He became friends with Gene Autrey and worked with him on The National Barn Dance radio show. When sound came to movies studios were looking for singing cowboys and he and Gene were cast in their first movie, "In Old Santa Fe". He became Autrey's sidekick named Frog Milhouse because he often sang in a frog voice. He appeared in over 80 westerns. In 1940 he was voted the second most popular cowboy star after Autrey. He wrote over 300 songs, and sang many of them in films. His songs were recorded by Bing Crosby, Ferlin Huskey, Willie Nelson and Leon Russell. When the B Westerns faded he became a regular on Ozark Jubilee. He was a regular on Petticoat Junction from 1963 to 1967. He legally changed his first name to Smiley. He invented an instrument called the Jassackaphone and an audiovisual entertainment system in which slides were projected to the rhythmic changes of a record.