Rudy Vallée

            On Thursday morning I memorized the ninth verse of "Lost Song" by Serge Gainsbourg. There is one verse left to learn so I'll probably have the song in my head on Friday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third day of four. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went over to the hardware store to buy a new plunger to replace the one that ruptured its rubber the day before after plunging the hell out of my toilet to keep it from overflowing. I talked with one of the staff about snakes and I considered that I might have to come back and get one if the new plunger wouldn't undo the blockage. 

            When I got home I got my salad bowl at the ready for bailing out the toilet if it started to fill up again. I flushed and it did fill up and so I scooped out a couple of bowlfuls of water. It wasn't rising as quickly as on Wednesday. I started plunging and at first nothing happened but suddenly to my relief it all went down. I don't know if the powerful drain cleaner actually seeped down and dissolved the big turd or if just soaking in water all night broke it up, but I didn't need a snake after all. I cleaned and disinfected the toilet and especially the sink because I'd been pissing in it for the last several hours. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. The grapes weren't in great shape but I found a couple of bags of firm black ones. I bought two packs of strawberries, some bananas, a pack of blackberries, a hickory smoked ham, milk, orange juice, limeade, a tub of It's Not Butter, salsa, Miss Vickie's chips, and Sponge Towels. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:39. 

            I compared my performances of my song "Megaphor" on August 14 and 18. They are about equal in good lighting and quality of playing but August 18 has a lot more traffic noise so August 14 is ahead. I compared August 19 to August 14 and on the 19th a couple of chords are slightly off so the 14th stays on top. I compared August 20 to August 14 and I think the 20th has fewer mistakes but the 14th has better light, more engagement, and nicer distortion and so I'm still holding onto the 14th. I compared August 29 to August 14 and watched the videos a couple of times but couldn't decide tonight which is better. I definitely play better on the 29th but there is better light and more engagement on the 14th. I'll watch them again on Friday. There are nine more sessions to look at and listen to after this. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song "Megaphor" I further edited my copy of the silent film Spies by Fritz Lang from two and a half minutes down to eighteen seconds. I think I only need about six. 

            I scanned some of the negatives that I found while organizing my photo drawer. There was one shot of my daughter when she was newborn, a strip of pictures of my cat Siva on the roof of the place I lived on Widmer Street and single negatives from the spring of 1988. There are five of those left and the rest are colour. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a porkchop while watching season 7, episodes 14 and 15 of Petticoat Junction. In the first story Joe gets a registered letter from a Herbert A. Smith who says he's coming to see him. Joe assumes he's in trouble but when Smith arrives he gives Joe $50 to pay him back for the $50 he gave him when he was down and out in Erie, Pennsylvania. He tells Joe that his generosity motivated him to make something of himself and he became a wealthy man with a company called Smith Consolidated. Joe tells him that since he helped him get rich he should do more for him than giving him $50. Smith offers to sell Joe some shares of his stock in his own company. Joe puts up the deed to the hotel. Smith takes it to invest it, promising to make him rich, and then he gets on the Cannonball to go back to the city and make the arrangements. But after Smith leaves Joe remembers that he's never been in Erie, Pennsylvania. He now thinks he's been conned and with the help of Orrin he catches up with Smith in Hooterville and demands the deed back. Joe tells him he isn't the one who gave him the $50. Smith is impressed that Joe would tell him that and still offers him the deal, but Joe refuses. Smith takes the $50 back since Joe is not the one who gave it to him. Later they see in the paper that Smith really was rich and Smith Consolidated stock is soaring. 

            Herbert Smith was played by Rudy Vallée, who graduated from the University of Maine and later popularized The Maine Stein Song which was the theme for that institution's sports teams. He earned a BA in Philosophy from Yale University. He started as a saxophone player and a singer in big bands and then became a band leader. He was considered to be the first crooner and was famous for singing through a megaphone. People called him the guy with the cock in his voice. He embraced that title and claimed to have been with 145 women. In the 1930s he became the star of the hit radio show The Fleischman's Yeast Hour. When he took his vacations from the show he insisted that Louis Armstrong be his substitute. This was the first time a black person had ever hosted a national radio program. Vallée had a violent reputation and was known to punch hecklers and photographers but audiences loved him, even though his orchestra hated him. In the 1920s and 1930s he had a string of hit songs, including As Time Goes By. His theme song was "Vagabond Lover" and The Vagabond Lover was the name of his first movie. He co-starred in The Palm Beach Story, I Remember Mama, Unfaithfully Yours, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The 60s hit song "Winchester Cathedral" was sung in his style and he liked it enough to sing it himself. He played Lord Marmaduke Ffogg in an episode of Batman. He had a television production company that produced one of the first cartoon shows, Tele Comics. 

           

            

            In the second story Billie Joe is bringing home a musician named Jerry Roberts. She has told Bobbie Joe over the phone that she thinks she's in love. Bobbie becomes obsessed with trying to help Billie and Jerry connect and so she tries to influence her family to be on their best behaviour and to put on a show of domestic bliss. She also keeps dropping hints and says that Betty Joe and Steve's honeymoon cottage could be the same for another sister and her beau. Finally Billie apologizes to Jerry for her family's behaviour, but Jerry says he loves it and thinks her family are the nicest people he's ever met. He says he's going to tell his fiancé all about them when he gets home. Billie is broken hearted but later receives a telegram from Jerry telling her that he and his fiancé broke up and he's looking forward to seeing her again as soon as possible.