Don Ameche

           On Friday morning I finished transcribing the second set of chords for "Lost Song" by Serge Gainsbourg that I found on Ultimate Guitar. I continued searching for more but didn't find any other than the two sets I found on Thursday. I did however find out that the song's melody comes from the song "Solveigs sang" (Solveig's Song) by Edvard Grieg, with lyrics by Henrik Ibsen from Ibsen's play Peer Gynt. Gainsbourg wrote his own lyrics for the melody that have nothing to do with the original. I worked out the first three chords to the intro. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the first day of two. It's becoming easier to transition from playing the acoustic for four days to playing the electric and vice versa. My hands knew I was playing the Kramer and automatically found the chords. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before breakfast. Around midday I went down to No Frills where all the red grapes were soft and I had to squeeze every bag of green grapes before I found five that were firm. I bought bananas, Irish Spring soap, Miss Vickie's chips, and two containers of PC skyr. 

            I weighed 85.5 kilos before lunch. 

            I had Triscuits with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

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

            I weighed 85.5 kilos at 17:00. 

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

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:19. 

            I compared the video of my September 8 performance of Megaphor with August 14. September 9 is slightly out of focus because there is very little natural light. August 14 has a magic that September 8 doesn't approach. I compared September 9 to August 14 and September 9 has even worse light than September 8. I continue to favour August 14. I compared September 14 to August 14 and I look friendlier on August 14, plus I'm more engaged with the song. I compared September 15 to August 14 and September 15 is technically better in terms of guitar playing but August 14 is generally better because of good light, my presence, my engagement, and the guitar playing isn't bad. I'm going to go with August 14 for the electric version of Megaphor that I'll synchronize with the interface audio that I recorded in Audacity. 

            Since I've already decided on August 5 for the acoustic version I started an August 5, 2023 project in Movie Maker and imported the videos and the audio for that day. I cut out the song "Personne" from the audio since I always recorded it without video just to practice my whistling. On Sunday I'll work on synchronizing the video with the audio. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of Megaphor I synchronized the concert video with the studio audio for my line, "But right under their noses an invisible thread spirals endlessly inward to god...". But the end of the line is "... to my head" and I pause longer before singing it in the concert video and so I cut some of that out. But the video shows me not singing when the studio has me singing the line. The line is only sung after the camera pans over to Brian Haddon at the keyboard. So I have to remove the video of me not singing but that puts the line "to my head" ahead of the studio audio. So now I need perhaps three images of gods to take up the three beats of space before the camera pans. I'll look for those on Sunday. 

            I scanned more of the colour negatives of the shots I took from my window, some of which went into my Paranoiac Utopia collage. There are six of those left but I see that there is another set of the same series. In fact all the rest of the colour negatives from the photo drawer are from that series. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a large cut up slice of smoked ham, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 7, episodes 18 and 19 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Joe blows up at Orrin for bringing Bobbie Joe home late and forbids him from seeing her again. The next day Orrin comes to announce he's leaving the valley and he brings gifts for everyone. He gives Bobbie Joe his mother's necklace with one pearl and he gives his family's bible to Betty Joe and Steve. But Janet notices something fall from the bible and when she reads it she sees that it is a deed that makes Orrin the owner of the valley. Joe apologizes to him and starts waiting on him hand and foot. It starts to go to Orrin's head and to Bobbie's as well. Orrin throws a party at the Shady Rest and everybody is treating him like a king. Then Janet comes in and calls him to the other room. She's been doing research and discovered that the deed was issued under the Confederate government during the Civil War. Orrin is worried that Joe will despise him again and keep him away from Bobbie Joe. Janet says he doesn't have to tell Joe and he doesn't have to lie. Since the deed is worthless anyway all he has to do is tear it up in front of everybody and make it look like he's doing a noble gesture of renouncing ownership. He does so and Joe is impressed and tells him he has his blessing to date Bobbie Joe.

            In the second story Steve's Uncle George is coming to visit and Steve warns Betty that he's a trouble maker. He doesn't cause trouble intentionally and in fact everyone finds him charming, but he inadvertently causes people to quarrel. He and Betty even fight while he's telling her about Uncle George. George arrives and charms everyone. He does some magic tricks for the baby, making bouquets of flowers appear and Kathy Joe is impressed. Joe tries to show the baby some card tricks but fumbles, then gets mad at Bobbie Joe. She says Uncle George has more charm than him and he resents that. He also resents her calling George "uncle". Joe and Bobbie have never argued before. Then Sam comes to escort Janet to the dance but learns she is strolling with George. Sam confronts them but Janet tells him he never asked her to the dance. He just took it for granted she would go because she went the year before. Later George proposes a toast to the day that Betty snagged Steve. He assumes she proposed to Steve because he had to beat women off with a stick. That night in bed they argue about it because Betty remembers Steve proposing. But Steve counters by telling her he remembers the first night he told her he loves her. He says she was wearing a red dress but Betty Joe says she's never worn a red dress because her hair is red. Then Billie Joe drops in to say goodbye because she's leaving early for a gig. Steve suddenly realizes it was Billie in the red dress that he said he loved when they were dating before he married Betty Joe. They all start arguing and suddenly Steve says he's going to ask George to leave so all the fighting will stop. But George has already decided to go. 

            With this season Wendell Gibbs did not appear as the engineer of the Cannonball and in fact no one did. But suddenly with this episode, Floyd Smoot is back as the engineer. Rufe Davis the actor who plays him had left the series because they refused to guarantee him a certain number of episodes.

            George was played by Don Ameche, who started in stock companies, then Vaudeville before turning to radio. He was a very popular leading man in movies in the 1930s and 1940s. He was also a sought after radio host and actor. His first radio acting job was the western series The Empire Builders. He co-starred in Betty and Bob, which many consider to be the first soap opera. He co-starred in the hit radio series The Bickersons. Because of his performance as Alexander Graham Bell in the 1930s and 40s people nicknamed the telephone the "Don Ameche". He co-starred in the movies In Old Chicago, Love Is News, Alexander's Ragtime Band, Midnight, Down Argentine Way, Heaven Can Wait, Hollywood Cavalcade, Swanee River, Four Sons, Happy Land, Wing and a Prayer, Things Change, and Greenwich Village. In 1944 he was the second highest paid actor in Hollywood. When his appeal as a romantic hero waned he continued to work in theatre and on television. He returned to film stardom after the success of Cocoon. He starred in the TV series Holiday Hotel.