Buddy Rogers

            On Monday morning I ran through singing the first eight verses of my translation of "Au bon vieux temps" (In the Good Old Days) by Boris Vian. On Tuesday I'll run through the remaining four and then maybe I'll have time to upload it to my Christian's Translations blog. 

            In Christian's Translations I did most of the editing that is needed to prepare "Le Couteau dans le play" by Serge Gainsbourg for blog publication. I should have it posted tomorrow. 

            I audio and video recorded song practice while playing my Martin acoustic guitar for the second day of four. I did Megaphor in one take and it seemed to be okay in the playback. The ending of my last take of Sixteen Tons of Dogma had at least one wrong chord. I lowered the gain on my voice but probably shouldn't have because it was a bit too soft. Some of my translations came through okay. I was in the last few seconds of what felt like it was going to be a successful take of "Dance and Sing to Baby Pop" when the camera timed out. There are four days left in this year's recording project. It's hard to believe that I've spent almost a quarter of a year on it. I don't think I was as nervous about trying to get good takes when I thought I was almost done in mid July. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before breakfast. 

        I looked out the window and saw that the bench on the corner in front of my building had been shattered into pieces. There were boards lying out on the street and a guy from the city was there taking pictures. I overheard someone say that a truck had hit it. 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I've been at midday in 46 days. 

            I was taking a siesta when Steve from Orkin pest control and a trainee walked into my place. They had come to treat my place for bedbugs but I'd received no notice. They were in the building also to deal with Shawn's mouse problem but not his bedbugs. No one else's place was on the schedule for bedbug treatment. Steve said unless Cesar's place can be treated they'll just keep coming back. I asked if he had any advice for me and he said to blow up the building. 

            I took an early bike ride and stopped at Long and McQuade to buy three ten gage guitar strings and to use the washroom. I went downtown and back. 

            When I got home I remade my bed and went to sleep for half an hour. 

            At 17:00 I chiseled some black quartz from a piece of the rock I found six years ago. I weighed 85.2 kilos at 17:30. 

            David came by with his work order for the landlord. All he wrote on it is "Bedbugs". He wants to go for lunch on Saturday. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:00. 

            I reviewed this morning's song practice video. As usual when I get a song down in one take Megaphor turned out pretty good. Sixteen Tons of Dogma was really good all the way through until that one chord near the end. I think a lot of my translations were okay as well. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a music video for my song "Megaphor" I deleted the opening keyboard part of the concert video because that part is done on guitar in the studio audio. The appearance of each image I inserted follows the rhythm of the intro and I synchronized the concert video so it begins just when the synthesizer kicks in. After a few more notes by Brian the camera pans to me playing guitar, but the intro in the concert video is about twice as long as the studio audio. I'm strumming pretty fast and so it would be quite hard to synchronize the guitar in the concert video with that from the studio. So I just started shaving off bits from the beginning after the panning of the camera and worked towards lining up the moment when I play the whammy bar to end the intro. I almost got that synchronized. 

            I scanned five single negatives that are obviously from the same set that shows me trying to look sexy with my fly down and my stuff hanging out. I almost pull it off (no pun intended). 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last piece of pork loin while watching season 6, episodes 6 and 7 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story the Pixley Bijoux movie theatre is closing down and the owner blames its wane in popularity on an event from forty years ago. The Bijoux was set to feature the premier of the silent film Wings and the two stars of the movie, Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen were scheduled to appear but chose instead to attend the premier at the Roxy in New York City. Joe decides to write an angry letter to Rogers and Arlen and the agent for the two actors finds it so amusing that he calls them to come and read it. Rogers and Arlen decide to keep their appointment forty years late. They are quite charming and eventually the town is excited about a new viewing of Wings with Rogers and Arlen as the special guests. The screen legends even have their footprints imbedded in cement in front of the theatre but both lose their right shoes because of the quick drying cement. 

            Buddy Rogers was a multi-instrumental musician. His best known role was in the classic WWI themed 1927 silent film "Wings". In the 1930s he had his own big band and was the first to hire Gene Krupa as a drummer. They played on Broadway in the show Hotcha in 1932. He was married to Mary Pickford for 42 years from 1937 until she died. He was eleven years younger than her. They met when they co-starred in the 1927 film My Best Girl. In his film career he was known as "America's Boyfriend". He appeared in several of the Mexican Spitfire films. 

            In the second story Doc Stuart announces that he plans to semi-retire and has arranged for a young doctor to come and assist him. The whole valley is surprised and so is Stuart when Dr. Craig turns out to be a woman. Stuart is not sure this is a good job for a woman but decides to give her a shot. The older men worry that they can't trust a female doctor while the older women found Stuart to be sexually attractive and would be less stimulated by the attentions of a woman physician. Betty Joe doesn't like the idea of an attractive woman examining Steve. Steve sees no reason why a woman doctor can't do a good job and Billie Joe and Bobbie Joe agree. For the next few days whenever a patient calls Doc Stuart's office they hang up if Dr. Janet Craig answers. Joe and some of the other men decide to pull a prank on Dr. Craig. Ben Miller calls her to ask her to come to his farm to treat Lilian. It was expected of Stuart to also serve as a veterinarian and they expect Craig to pack up and leave after being expected to treat a pregnant cow but she delivers Lilian's calf and wins a small victory in her approval rating. 

            Craig was played by June Lockhart and this episode introduces her as the new mother figure for the rest of the series now that Bea Benaderet is dead. She was free for the part because Lost In Space had just been canceled.