Frank Ferguson

            On Tuesday morning I worked out most of the chords to "Que tu es impatiente la mort" (How Very Impatient is Death) by Boris Vian and only had one line left. I should have that done on Wednesday. 

            I memorized the chorus of "Charlotte Forever" by Serge Gainsbourg. I returned to playing my Martin acoustic guitar for song practice and video and audio recorded the session. I got through "Megaphor" on the first take and almost made it through "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" on the premier try as well but I stopped when a firetruck went by because I didn't want a siren in my recording. The buses, trucks, and streetcars are obnoxious too but if I stopped for them I'd never finish a song. It was generally a pretty good session despite the traffic noise and I broke this year's record by getting through two more songs than I did last week before the camera battery timed out. I only fell short on "Laisse tomber les filles" because I fumbled a take or two. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos before breakfast. I got an email from Gian at Lil Demon Guitars telling me that he'd finally finished repairing my Epi after a month and three quarters. I have a Gibson knock-off that I wanted him to look at to see if it's worth repairing so around midday I brought it along. The Epi sounds as good as it used to and he only charged me $200. About ten years ago someone at Steve's told me it would cost about $400. The black Gibson-shaped electric has no name on it whatsoever. Gian said it's definitely Japanese and he thinks it's probably a Univox. He said it's pretty cool and if I didn't want to pay to fix it up he might buy it from me. He says he thinks he can get it to sound pretty good for $200 to $300 and so I said okay and left it with him to fix. He says two to three weeks and so my experience with him tells me it'll take at least a month. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was very hot. 

            I chiseled some more of my amethyst rock and it's now down to a fist-sized hunk that still needs shaping. I have three pieces of about the same size that have been chipped into acceptable shapes and I have a bag of loose crystals to maybe use for something later. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos at 16:45. 

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

            I reviewed the video of this morning's song practice and it was certainly one of my better sessions. "Megaphor" was okay and "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" was almost mistake free. Maybe a chord or two was a little off. There was lots of traffic noise though. I'm starting to think that a good number of these takes from this year's project could be good enough for me to upload and then move on to other songs. 

            I reviewed the videos of my performances of "How to Say Goodbye to You" and "Comment te dire adieu" from June 15 to June 27, 2022. For "How to Say Goodbye to You", June 15 was okay but the spit screen was over my chin. On June 16 and 18 I fumbled several times and just tried to get through it rather than redo it. On June 20 and 22 the camera battery timed out before this song. On June 24 it was cut off in mid fumble. On June 26 it was one of the best takes until the end when I started fumbling again. For "Comment te dire adieu", in June 17 I fumbled it and just went ahead. It was also extremely noisy outside. On June 19 my fumbling was cut off when the camera timed out. On June 21, 23 and 27 the camera battery timed out before this song. June 25 was the best yet even though it was still bad. 

            I've decided to make two more gifs from my "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" video. One will be from my animation of electrical cords behaving like snakes and the other will be from the part where I open the curtain to look out and say, "No!" I copied the "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" video and saved the copy as "Electrical Cords Snake Nest" then I deleted everything but the cords and the snakes. Since I alternated clips of snakes and cords fairly quickly I needed to enlarge the timeline so I could cut out the snakes. I didn't quite finish removing them before dinner. 

            I wasn't going to use the stove because it was so hot but it cooled down enough to make cooking tolerable. I had a potato with gravy and some pork ribs while watching season 2, episodes 20 and 21 of Petticoat Junction. 

            The first story had a ridiculous and somewhat racist ending. The Cannonball has stopped running because a bird has built a nest on top of the smoke stack and laid eggs there. It will take three weeks for the eggs to hatch and Charlie and Floyd refuse to move the train so as not to endanger the future baby birds. Vice President Homer Bedloe of the C & FW Railroad has been trying to shut down the Cannonball for the last year or so but it is stated that he's spent his life trying to defeat it. He only first heard of The Cannonball and formed his grudge against it in the previous season. Anyway, Homer is thrilled about the bird because state law rules that a train must make a round trip of its line every two weeks or lose its franchise. Since the bird won't be gone in two weeks Bedloe has come to watch the line be scrapped. He brings in Mr. Williams from the State Railroad Commission to make the declaration when the two weeks are up, even though Williams doesn't want to. The written text says a coach and an engine has to make the round trip to Pixley. Charlie and Floyd arrive on the hand car with two seconds to spare pulling an old stage coach and Joe's wooden First Nations statue, thus making the round trip with "a coach and an injun". I told you it was ridiculous. 

            In the second story a supermarket has opened in Pixley and it is taking away all of Sam's business in Hooterville. The situation is straining Sam's sanity. The only customers still faithful to Sam are Kate and her girls. But Sam's nerves are shot and Doctor Stuart says he needs a vacation. Kate and the girls offer to run the store while he goes on a fishing trip. But while Kate and the girls are out, Joe is running the store when a salesman comes. Joe makes some orders but when he asks for a certain number of cans the salesman thinks he means that number of cases of cans. The cannonball arrives packed with a thousand cases of various goods. Kate begins to lose her mind like Sam did. 

            Dr. Stuart was played by Frank Ferguson, who was a performer, acting coach and director for the Pasadena Playhouse before his film career. His first movie was "Gambling On the High Seas" in 1939. On television he played Gus on "My Friend Flicka", the veterinarian on "Lassie", and Eli Carson on "Peyton Place".