Joan Blondell

            On Monday morning I ran through "Au bon vieux temps" (In the Good Old Days) by Boris Vian in French. Next I need to revise my translation and that might take a few days. 

            I worked out the chords for the second verse and almost half the chorus of "Le Couteau dans le play" (The Knife in the Play) by Serge Gainsbourg. I think that the subsequent verses will have the same chords as the first two. 

            I audio and video recorded song practice while playing my Kramer electric guitar for the third day of four and it was in tune from the start and stayed there. I expected the traffic to be more quiet on a Labour Day morning and I guess it was quieter than a normal Monday but still annoyingly loud. I redid "Megaphor" several times, not because of mistakes but because I wanted a take without a lot of background noise. A bus went by and I stopped, one of those noisy little street vacuum cars went by, there was the loud mosquito buzz of a motorcycle, and there were trucks. They say the hybrid buses are quieter than gas but they sound louder to me. Although the motors of electric buses are quieter than gas engines the vehicles are a lot heavier and make more noise just from rumbling along if the terrain is rough. I didn't use as much reverb this time except on "Le temps des yéyé" and then I used noise reduction only on that song. I was able to finish "Baby Pop" and "Comme un boomerang" and the camera went off while I was working on "Les sucettes".

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I finished reading the Ontario Government Scholarships application instructions. They are even more complicated than the federal scholarships. 

            I was on my way to make lunch when my upstairs neighbour and friend David called to me. We talked for about half an hour mostly about the landlord and the bedbugs. I showed him my "Sleep in the Snow" video and he said it was fantastic. He told me the people at the Capital Espresso can hear me playing and complained to him that they haven't heard me lately. I guess that's because I've been facing the camera for three months instead of the window. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I chiseled some more black quartz from pieces of the rock that I found six years ago. 

            I weighed 85 kilos at 16:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:07. 

            I reviewed this morning's song practice video. "Megaphor" seems to have come through okay. "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" had some wrong chords at the end. I made it through "Comme un boomerang" and was just starting "Les sucettes" when the camera timed out. 

            I went through my "Sleep in the Snow" video and selected certain screen shots. I fixed them up in paint to have a selection of thumbnails for when I posted the video on YouTube. I uploaded it and used for the thumbnail an image of the good witch from The Wizard of Oz when she was making it snow on Dorothy to wake her from the poppies induced sleep brought on by a spell of the wicked witch. I posted the video and on Tuesday I'll post the same video but with the added drum track. 

            I scanned twelve strips of four frame negatives, all black and white except for four slides. They range from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s and most of them are the latter. There's a nice shot of my ex-girlfriend Gloria, some slides of my ex-girlfriend Brenda. Pictures of William "Scooter" Baker with Nedra Rodrego and Marc Brandeis at some sort of reading that Scooter organized. There are shots of a friend and brief lover named Victoria who used to read at my open stage. 

            It was too hot tonight to use the stove and so I had a piece of cold pork loin with salsa, skyr and kettle chips while watching season 5, episodes 22 and 23 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Joe and Sam are excited because they've heard that Florabelle Campbell is coming to stay at the Shady Rest. Both Joe and Sam remember Florabelle as an old flame. Sam remembers telling her bad jokes at observation point. She wanted to smooch but he had a sore nose from winning a peanut race. Joe remembers being stuck with her on a Ferris wheel for two hours. But when Florabelle arrives she doesn't recognize Joe or Sam and they are heartbroken. Betty Joe shows Florabelle an old high school year book and she recognizes Joe and Sam right away but as Slim Carson and Curly Drucker. Betty tells Florabelle the problem and Florabelle makes up for her not remembering the guys earlier by fawning all over Joe and Sam. It all ends with a family singalong of old fashioned songs and dancing. 

            Florabelle was played by Joan Blondell, who was on the Vaudeville stage from the age of four months in her parents' act. At the age of seventeen she branched out on her own and joined a stock company. She won the Miss Dallas pageant, was a finalist in the Miss Universe pageant and came in fourth in the Miss America pageant all in 1926. She made her New York debut in the Ziegfeld Follies. She starred on Broadway with Jimmy Cagney in Penny Arcade and when Al Jolson bought the film rights he sold them to Hollywood on the condition that Blondell and Cagney reprise their roles, which they did and the name was changed to Sinners Holiday. She co-starred with Cagney again in Blonde Crazy and a few more movies. She worked opposite Cagney more than any other actress. She married Dick Powell for ten years and they did ten musicals together. She co-starred in Topper Returns, Cry Havoc, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which she considered her best performance. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in The Blue Veil. She co-starred in Lizzie. She played Peggy Revere on the short lived TV series Banyon. She wrote a novel entitled "Centre Door Fancy". 

            

            

           

           

            

            In the second story Joe is running the hotel while Kate is away. It doesn't mention why she's away but Bea Benaderet was being treated for lung cancer. There is an elderly man named Mr. Clayton staying at the hotel who hasn't had the money to pay in a long time. The writers do this all the time on the show. They introduce a character who is supposed to have been a guest at the hotel for a long time even though we haven't seen them before while it is often mentioned that the hotel is empty. So anyway Joe goes to remind Clayton of the rent he owes and the old man decides it is best that he move on even though he has no money and no place to go. When the sisters see Clayton has moved out they are mad at Joe and so are Floyd and Sam. Joe feels so bad that he packs his things and sneaks away. Now everybody feels bad about snubbing Joe and they are all looking for him. Meanwhile Joe finds a dilapidated old shack and moves in but discovers that Clayton is already living there. Clayton welcomes Joe with open arms. Joe sneaks back to the Shady Rest to steal food and bedding for him and his new friend. The sisters and Steve see Joe sneaking away and follow him to see what's going on. The next day when Joe comes to steal breakfast it's all prepared and waiting for him but Steve brings Clayton back in as a guest and everything is back to normal.