Bartlett Robinson

            On Sunday morning I blog published "I Took You for Someone You Were Not", my translation of "Pour ce que tu n’étais pas" by Serge Gainsbourg. On Monday I'll start learning his song "Être ou ne pas naître" (To Be or Not to Be). 

            I video and audio recorded my song practice as it looks like I'll do until mid-September unless it gets too dark at that hour. I did a lot of retakes this time unlike yesterday which went more smoothly.

            After the camera battery timed out I continued to record audio but then I noticed that there was no signal from the pickup on my Martin. Hopefully it only needs a recharge and after charging it'll be okay till September. Anyway I think it was working during video recording. 

            After I saw that I wasn't getting a waveform for the guitar in Audacity I stopped recording. But then I forgot that I was still plugged in and absent mindedly tried to walk to the kitchen with my guitar. I pulled the interface off my computer and down onto the floor. I think it's still okay though.

            The audio recording seems to have come out all right. I increased the volume of "Megaphor" before extracting the file. 

            Tomorrow I'll play the electric again, miking the amp. I might try to position the microphone more directly in front of the cone to get a better sound from the Kramer. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I started charging my guitar battery. 

            I went over to the hardware store and bought a tub of spackle. I filled up a few cracks in the bedroom so bedbugs won't have as many places to hide. I've been seeing at least two a night for the last few days when I check the walls and baseboards before bedtime. With the rest of the Polyfilla I filled up the gap between the southeast corner of my living room wall near the door leading into the kitchen. At the end of May I had freed up some of the brick wall above the door by prying off the plaster and it also opened up that gap. It needs some more work but it looks a lot better now. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I've been at midday in a week. I had Triscuits with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of raspberry lemonade. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos at 17:00. 

            For half an hour I chiseled slate to get the green fossils out. I got a few little stones freed with green veins. I should be finished in about a week. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:16. 

            I reviewed this morning's song practice video. The 2:30 take of Megaphor wasn't bad. "Time of the Yo-Yo" was pretty good. I spent a lot of time on "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" but though the last take is all right it's probably not a keeper. I did a few retakes of "Kenya" because my hands couldn't find the final chords until the end when I got cut off. 

            I started downloading a ten hour video of softly falling snow but it was taking too long and so I canceled it and downloaded a two hour one of quickly falling snow. Tomorrow I'll convert it to a format I can use in Movie Maker and edit it down to maybe two minutes. 

            I finished scanning the colour negatives from December 1987 and started on a new set from the same time. It's mostly shots of my ex-girlfriend Brenda with some of my late friend Mike Copping. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 4, episodes 16 and 17 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Morton, the caretaker of a famous Great Dane named Hamlet leaves the dog in Joe's care while he flies to New York. That's ridiculous. If the dog is that valuable one wouldn't leave it with a stranger. Everybody dotes on the Great Dane so much that Betty Joe's dog feels left out and appears to have run away. Joe has Hamlet sniff the dog's bedding so he can track him like he does on TV. He leads Joe out to the woods but Betty's dog is really under the house. Joe comes back without Hamlet because the dog broke free to chase a rabbit. Morton returns and threatens to sue Joe and to take the hotel. Joe assures him that if Hamlet is half as smart as he is on TV he'll find his way back, but Morton says Hamlet is an extremely stupid dog. Then Betty Joe's dog comes leading Hamlet by his leash. 

            Morton was played by Bartlett Robinson, who formed a performance group with his friends in 1933 called the Sunday Players. They drove from New York to California looking for work. Robinson got work in radio and had roles on several series while also travelling back to New York to work on stage. He was the first actor to do the voice of Perry Mason. His first film appearance was in "The Birds and the Bees" in 1956. He was a regular on the 1960s sitcom "Mona McCluskey". He appeared on three episodes of "The Twilight Zone", including "To Serve Man". 

            In the second story there is a dance to which the girls have to ask the guys. Bobbie Joe has asked Tommy but he has a ball game. Billie Joe and Steve were scheduled for a picnic alone but Steve got a crop dusting job and so she's upset and determined to refuse any future date offers from him. Bobbie Joe thinks this is an opportunity to move in and ask Steve to the dance. Kate tells her she has to ask Billie Joe's permission. Billie Joe gives it but is mad at Bobbie Joe for accepting. Then Betty Joe asks Bobbie Joe if she can ask Tommy and she also gives her begrudging consent. Then Jerry, an old friend of Steve's from the air force comes to visit. He gets permission from Steve to take Billie Joe to the dance. One assumes she asked him since she's supposed to but it doesn't say so. Steve resents his friend for taking her. Just as they are all about to leave, the power goes out. Betty Joe and Jerry head for the basement together to fix the generator. After the lights are back on and they return they are going to the dance together and suddenly Billie is back with Steve and Bobbie with Tommy. 

            I finally caught a mouse in the first and cheapest humane trap that I bought over a month ago. It went for the strong cheese in the living room beside the right end of the couch. I took it out to the O'Hara Garden on the corner and released it among the plants.