Robert Wisdom

            On Monday morning I searched for the chords for "Au bon vieux temps" (In the Good Old Days) by Boris Vian but no one posted any, so I worked out the first two for the intro. 

            I finished editing "Être ou ne pas naître" (To Be or Not to Be) by Serge Gainsbourg in Christian's Translations to prepare it for publication on the blog. All that's left is to post an accompanying video and then I'll publish it tomorrow. 

            I audio and video recorded song practice while playing my Martin acoustic guitar. I had a hell of a time getting through "Megaphor" because my hand kept going sharper than the B chord for the second line. I guess my hand got used to going higher to get to the B during the last four days of playing the song on my Kramer electric. I think "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" came out okay. I was singing better today but it was cloudy and the light was not very good so the video might be out of focus. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            I called my landlord to remind him that I need my plumbing fixed but just got his voice mail. 

            I called Topcuts to find out when my favourite stylist Amy will be in this week. I talked to Amy and told her I'd come on Friday at noon. 

            I worked on my Statement of Purpose that is supposed to accompany my application to enter the Master of Arts in Creative Writing program. I'm a little over a hundred words short. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 84.6 kilos at 17:00. 

            I chiseled some more crystals, breaking free some amethyst but mostly little pieces of black quartz. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:12. 

            I reviewed this morning's song practice video. I did "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" in one take and although not perfect it was one of the best versions I've done lately. I made it all the way to the end of "Laisse tomber les filles" for the first time during these late summer video sessions. I think I only made it a couple of times in the early summer. 

            I searched for videos to fit "want to sleep in the snow", "sleep in the snow" and "in the snow". With the latter I came across Nanook of the North and the snow scene from The Wizard of Oz, which used asbestos for snow. Those two might work but I'll keep looking. 

            I scanned several strips from the set of black and white negatives that I started yesterday. I can see that they are actually from at least two different rolls taken before I left for Europe and after I came back because some of the shots are of the apartment where I was living on Widmer Street and others are from the house on St. Clarens where I lived with Mike Copping and his family. There are a lot of street shots, pictures of people on the street and in art studios, my cats Siva and Sakti, my ex-girlfriend Brenda, and some pictures that I took of myself reflected and warped in a sheet of Mylar. 

           

            I grilled both the apple-maple and the Greek pork loins. I had a slice of the Greek one with a potato and gravy while watching season 2, episode 8 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 

            In this story a Klingon General named Dak'Rah, known as "The Butcher of J'Gal" is now a Federation ambassador trying to bring peace between Klingons and Starfleet. It is rumoured that he killed his own men when he found out they had ordered attacks on civilians. The Enterprise has to transport him and treat him like an honoured guest but this is complicated by the fact that Mbenga and Chapel both served on J'Gal, treating the wounded and the dying. They both suffer from post traumatic stress disorder because of their experiences. Erica Ortegas also served in the Klingon war and has a strong resentment for Rah. Mbenga has a past as a special operations soldier known as The Ghost. Wanting to end the slaughter Mbenga left the field hospital to fight and he knows that Rah did not kill his own men because Mbenga killed them. He also knows that it was Rah who gave the order for civilians to be killed. Rah tries to talk Mbenga into joining him in his campaign for peace because the image of two former enemies working side by side would be powerful. There is a struggle and Mbenga stabs Rah. Chapel covers for Mbenga by lying that she saw the whole thing. One would think that in a future military organization like Starfleet the actions of its officers would be recorded at all times.

            Dak'Rah was played by Robert Wisdom, who starred in The Wire. He co-starred in the third season of Prison Break. He co-starred in Vacation Friends. He played Coleman Carlisle on Nashville and Jim Moss on Barry. He's also a percussionist.