George O'Hanlon

            On Wednesday morning I ran through singing all but the last two verses of my translation of "Que tu es impatiente la mort" (We Are So Impatient for Death) by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I'll probably finish it and then upload it to my Christian's Translations blog. 

            I worked out the chords for first verse of "Charlotte Forever" by Serge Gainsbourg and part of the chorus. 

            I returned to playing my Kramer electric guitar during song practice and video and audio recorded the session. As usual it was difficult getting back into the groove of playing the electric after four days with the acoustic, and I don't think I quite made it. On top of that, after a few songs, a road crew started using a concrete saw on O'Hara. When a streetcar stopped in front of my window the sound of the saw would bounce off the vehicle and come in even louder. I'm not sure if I had any good takes of any of the songs but I'll review them later to hear. 

            I weighed 85 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I continued scrubbing and scraping the glue from where the fourth tile had been on the kitchen floor in front of the counter. I got at least three-quarters of the glue off and should have that section done on Thursday. The stainless steel brush works great but the only problem is that bristles come off every time I use it and they get picked up by the washcloth and prick me sometimes when I use it. They also sometimes get picked up by my bare feet. 

            I weighed 85.5 kilos before lunch, which is the most I've weighed at that time in twenty days. I had Breton crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

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

            I weighed 84.5 kilos at 17:30. 

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

            I reviewed this morning's video of my song practice. "Megaphor" didn't sound strong but "Le temps des yéyé" was okay. "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" came out better than I thought it would. It was when I started "L'accordion" that they began using the concrete saw and it persisted through the rest of the songs, although not always extremely loud. I made it through "Baby Pop" before the camera timed out. Three more days left in this year's recording project. 

            I listened to the seven drum tracks for my song "Sleep in the Snow". In the first four I was just playing the snare and some cymbals. The first track doesn't go through the whole song and so I deleted it. Track four seems like the best of that bunch but I think I need to listen again. Track five just had the kick drum and it didn't go through the whole son and so I got rid of it. Track six is pretty wild because I'm trying to get fancy with rolls and crashes and sometimes it works. Track seven has me playing the whole kit in a straightforward way and it probably works the best from a practical standpoint but I wouldn't mind trying to add some elements of track six into track seven. I could give it a shot in Ableton or Audacity and hear if it works. I'll give the remaining five tracks another listen tomorrow.

            I scanned a set of colour negatives from October 1987, or at least they were developed in October. It has shots that I took of my ex-girlfriend Brenda's family on the only occasion that I went there for dinner. I think that I took the pictures on September 28 of that year because I remember that we watched the first episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, which aired on that date. I scanned the first strip of another set from a sleeve marked with the date of March 1987. Those are so far just street shots. 

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

            In the first story an entire circus comes to stay at the Shady Rest although only Harry Harmon the ringmaster, his wife Mary the knife thrower, Mr. Tingling, the giant and the seal trainer with his pet actually check in. Baron Munchin the little person comes in the giant's suitcase and the rest climb up to the second floor. The extra people find clever ways to hide whenever Kate comes around. It turns out that the Shady Rest is on a list circulated by shifty entertainers looking for free places to stay. The message they share is that Joe Carson is a windbag but easily manipulated but Kate is murder and to be avoided. The five official guests appear to eat an incredible amount of food at dinner but Baron Munchin is under the table with a big bag collecting food that is being passed down to him and when the coast is clear he scoots up the stairs to bring food to all of the other non-registered guests. When Kate sees Munchin, the tightrope walker and the fire eater, no one else does and they are gone when she tries to point them out. At one point the entire circus is performing in the lobby and they've even brought Kate's daughters into the act. Kate is making one of the guest beds when she finds a booklet that contains a list of hotels that are easy to steal from and she finds the Shady Rest included. She kicks everyone out and when Billie Joe asks where they will go Kate reads from the booklet that the Crabwell Corners Inn is good for two weeks if one tells the proprietor that she looks like Elizabeth Taylor. After they leave Kate finds that a tremendous amount of their stuff has been stolen, including towels, silverware, ashtrays and the frame from Kate's grandmother's picture. One thing they forgot to take with them was Cecil the seal. 

            Harry was played by George O'Hanlon, who starred as Joe McDoakes in a long running series of comedy shorts such as "So You Want a Television Set" and "So Your Wife Wants to Work". He co-starred in the science fiction film "Kronos". He was the voice of George Jetson. He co-starred in the TV drama series The Reporter. He also wrote scripts for TV series such as Petticoat Junction and 77 Sunset Strip. His cousin Virginia O'Hanlon is the one being addressed in the famous letter, "Yes Virginia there is a Santa Clause". 

            The second story is the beginning of the third season and it's the first season that was in colour. This is also the year that Lori Saunders took over the role of Bobbie Joe and Swedish actor Gunilla Hutton assumed the part of Billie Joe. In this story Sam Drucker is publishing an advice column called Dear Minerva and he makes sure that Kate overhears that he is Minerva. She notices that he is giving horrible advice and as Sam had hoped she takes over the column. The condition however is that her role as Minerva must be kept a secret and so she relies on the one member of her family who can't talk. The nameless Bradley dog carries Kate's columns to Sam and he in turn attaches the Dear Minerva letters to the dog's collar to bring back to Kate. Kate has a hell of a time keeping her role as Minerva a secret and she also has great difficulty getting any sleep. Kate's column is so popular that a big publisher calls Sam and wants Minerva's column to be syndicated to 43 newspapers. The girls intercept a message from Sam and misinterpret it as a love letter to Kate. The girls decide to write to Minerva. When Kate reads their letter she writes one more column telling her readers she is retiring. No one ever finds out that Minerva was Kate.