Eddie Cochran

            On Friday morning I memorized the ninth verse of "Au bon vieux temps" (In the Good Old Days) by Boris Vian. There are three verses left to learn. 

            I memorized all of the verses of "Être ou ne pas naître" (To Be or Not to Be) by Serge Gainsbourg but I didn't have time to nail down the sequence of the last two repetitions. I should have the whole song in my head on Saturday. 

            I audio and video recorded my song practice while playing the Martin acoustic guitar. I had to do a few retakes of Megaphor, Sixteen Tons of Dogma and a few other songs. But some songs were done in one take and sounded okay in the audio playback. This time before trying to add an effect I saved the file as an Audacity project just in case it crashed like it did yesterday. Once again even though I highlighted only the vocal track for Megaphor and applied the reverb effect, it gave the vocals reverb for the entire session. I decided though that since I have a clean file of the session saved, I'd export the copy with the reverb. That way I'll have the reverb while considering Megaphor but can always open up the saved Audacity file later and remove the reverb if I don't want it on other songs. From now on I'll save every Audacity session just in case it crashes again. 

            I weighed 83.8 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I've been in the morning in four months. 

            I've been listening to the Eddie Cochran discography. He certainly was a hot guitarist and almost as good a singer as Elvis. One can really hear in his playing how much he influenced Pete Townsend. While a lot of his songs are derivative, certain ones like "Summertime Blues" and "Come On Everybody" stand out for their lyrics about teenage rebellion. I'm particularly fond of his song "Nervous Breakdown". He dropped out of high school in his first year to become a professional musician. His career took off at the age of 18 when he played "Twenty Flight Rock" in the film "The Girl Can't Help It", starring Jayne Mansfield. After the death of his friends Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper he was afraid of touring but had to for his career. In 1960 he and Gene Vincent had just finished the last of their shows in England and were riding in a taxi with Eddie's girlfriend, songwriter Sharon Sheeley, when the taxi crashed. He tried to shield her from the impact and got thrown from the car, suffering severe brain injuries that killed him hours later. 

            Around midday I rode up to Walmart to buy a sheet and some underwear because it was either do that or do the laundry. But the only bottom sheet I had had a rip in the middle and I figured any more washing would just make the hole bigger. I went downstairs and was greeted by the friendliest Walmart employee I've ever met. She pointed to where the bedding is and I bought a king size sheet set even though my futon is a queen. But they are black with a thread count of 400 and cost me $60. The fitted sheet doesn't really fit because it's the wrong size but it's probably okay. If not I can just use the straight sheet for the bottom and my old top sheet. I also bought some underwear, a purple bath towel and some Sponge towels. 

            I weighed 84.3 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 84.2 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:38. 

            I reviewed the video of this morning's song practice and I think the final takes of most of the songs came out okay. I fumble the French more than the guitar these days. The camera timed out after a few failed takes of "Baby Pop". 

            I continued to search for a video clip to fit with the line, "I didn't want to get up but I did" from my song "Sleep in the Snow". I looked for a fighter who is down and trying to get up and I found some clips like that but I couldn't find anything that looked in line with my vision. Then I looked at footage of early attempts by humans to fly and found some of those more interesting. I bookmarked a few videos and I'll continue to search along those lines. 

            I scanned some black and white and colour negatives that were maybe shot in early 1987 before I went to Europe. 

            I had a potato with gravy and the last little pieces of beef rib meat while watching season 4, episodes 26 and 27 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Bobbie Joe gets a poem published and it puts her head in the clouds. At college she begins hanging around with what Betty Joe calls "kooks". She brings home Stanley who is a ridiculous caricature of a Beatnik. He wants to take her to a coffeehouse in Springdale and Kate says okay. But later Steve says he's been there and it's a dive. So now Kate is worried and wants Steve to take her there. Bobbie is embarrassed when her mother walks in and wants to hide. The writers of these sixties sitcoms always tried to make Beatniks look absurd. There is a woman on stage strumming a guitar dissonantly and reciting poetry: "Death is the nightmare of life / Eagle screams, the dove falters / All is black / Mercy cries, Mercy cries mercy but no one hears / Eyes see the castaway lives in the heart of the city / weep for him." When the woman leaves the stage, Kate borrows her guitar and goes up to the stage. She lets her hair down and then recites: "Protest / Reep the wild wind / Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy / A kid could eat ivy too / Wouldn't you? / Wouldn't you? / Wouldn't you?" Bobbie Joe is dying with embarrassment and heads for the door but the audience gives Kate a standing ovation. Kate's purpose was to prove with some silly lines from the 1944 song "Mairzy Doates" that Beatniks are posers. The lyrics of Mairzy Doates have roots in a 1450 manuscript. Anyway it seems to cure Bobbie of wanting to hang around with Beatniks and so the world is safe once again. 

            In the second story Steve's old friend and co-pilot from the air force, Jeff is coming to visit. The girls find him charming but when he is complementing Billie Joe's singing and looks, Steve takes him aside to let him know that she's his girl. But then when Jeff is reciting poetry with Bobbie Joe, Steve calls him away to tell him she's not for him either because she's country and he's city. Then when Jeff is discussing with Betty Joe how baseball is like dancing Steve also nixes him. There is a dance coming up and Steve gets Jeff a date with Henrietta Plout so he won't try to make time with the Bradley sisters. Then Steve starts to feel bad about his behaviour towards Jeff. Kate tells him that he's being childish like a kid that doesn't want to share his toys. The girls also realize what Steve has been doing and they decide to teach him a lesson. All three decide to be Jeff's dates to the dance and they arrange for Steve to take Henrietta.