Hank Worden

            On Thursday morning I memorized the second verse of "Être ou ne pas naître" (To Be or Not to Be) by Serge Gainsbourg. There's only one verse left so I might have that nailed down on Friday. 

            I video and audio recorded my song practice while playing the Martin acoustic guitar. When it was finished I tried to add reverb to my vocal on Megaphor and it caused Audacity to crash. It let me recover the file and I should have left well enough alone but I tried it again and lost it. I wasted two and a half hours trying to recover the file like I'd tried and failed to do before with Ableton but it was a waste of time. So today's session was a write off. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos before a late breakfast at almost noon. 

            I went to Lil Demon Guitars because Gian emailed me on Wednesday that my Japanese black fake Gibson electric guitar was ready. I took along my Kramer because I felt like the action was too low. He said it was just right for most people who shred on Kramers. I said I'm a hard strummer and the E string goes "bonk" all the time. It took him a minute or so to adjust it. It cost me $291.52 to fix the Fibson. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos before lunch. I had Triscuits with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of raspberry lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. But while I went to lock my bike I saw that I'd forgotten to put the lock back in my backpack after going to Lil Demon and back. So I rode home and considered going to the supermarket on Friday but decided I have to go to Walmart to buy a sheet on Friday and didn't want to spend the time going to two places, so I got my lock and rode back to Freshco and it was only an extra ten minutes. The cherries are gone and so I bought five bags of grapes. I also got blueberries, blackberries, five-year-old cheddar, a rack of pork ribs, orange juice, limeade, and a bag of kettle chips. 

            I weighed 83.7 kilos at 17:30, which is the lightest I've been in the evening in four months. I was caught up on my journal at 18:45. 

            I reviewed this morning's song practice video even though I can't use it because Audacity lost my audio. It's a shame because it was a pretty good session with quite a few keepers. I made it all the way to "How to Say Goodbye to You" and almost did a not bad take of that before I screwed up at the end. That's the furthest I've gotten this year in video recording my song practice list. 

            I finished scanning a set of black and white negatives that are mostly shots of my ex-girlfriend Brenda and another black and white set of night shots of a subway train. 

            I had a potato with gravy and three pieces of beef rib meat while watching season 4, episodes 24 and 25 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Joe's latest scheme to draw guests into the Shady Rest is a fishing derby with big prizes like an outboard motor, a rowboat and a rod and a reel. He tries to get Sam to order the items from a mail order house. He says they won't have to pay for them because Sam and Joe are the best fishermen in the valley and one of them is bound to win the contest and then they can return the items within the thirty day limit. Sam isn't interested until he learns that Kate's hotel is doing very poor business right now. The derby is on and the guests arrive. Joe contacts sports writer Rod Granger about the event and he comes to check it out. Granger enters the contest and as a champion angler he's a real threat to Joe and Sam. Sam catches a 3.5 kilo fish, putting him in the lead, but then Granger catches a 4 kilo fish on the beginning of the last day. Joe and Sam spend the whole day on the lake but come home without a winner in their baskets. On top of that Joe is soaking wet because he fell in. But when Joe gets back to the hotel he finds inside his wading pants that somehow he caught Old Mike, the notorious and illusive fish of Lost Lake. Mike weighs 4.5 kilos and so Joe wins. 

            In the second story Kate decides to sell the Shady Rest to the owner of a hotel chain. At first the family is thrilled because the girls can make their dreams come true and Kate and Joe can retire comfortably. But Sam, Charlie and Floyd are unhappy and the girls and Joe begin to realize that they don't want to leave. Steve says he has his crop dusting business in the valley now and he won't be leaving with them. Even Salma Plout is sad because Kate, her most worthy opponent, will be leaving. Kate throws a party for all of her friends in the valley but everyone is sitting sadly like it's a wake. Mr. Hollywell arrives with the papers but when he sees the look on Kate's face he remembers the little country hotel that he started with and won't let Kate go through with it. Suddenly everyone is happy.

            One of the locals, Roy Turlock was played by Hank Worden, who was raised on a ranch, and educated as an engineer. He became a saddle bronc rider and broke his neck in his 20s but didn't know it until his 40s. He was spotted along with Tex Ritter in a rodeo at Madison Square Gardens and they were cast in the Broadway show "Green Grow the Lilacs", which was the basis for the musical "Oklahoma". His first movie was "The Plainsman". He became friends with John Wayne and John Ford, both of whom gave him work in seventeen of their movies. He played a senile hotel waiter in David Lynch's "Twin Peaks".