John Harmon

            On Saturday I woke up at around 3:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep. I could hear my CPU fan surging and counted that it does so about every fifteen seconds. My system has told me during restarts that the CPU is not working properly. 

            I memorized the chorus of “Physique est sans issue” (Physical Without Issue). I adjusted my translation. There are only two verses left to learn. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar for the final session of four. On Sunday I’ll start two days with my Martin acoustic. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning in ten days.

            In the late morning I went down to No Frills where I bought seven bags of grapes, a pack of strawberries, a sirloin tip roast, Basilica tomato sauce, salsa, sweet chili sauce, and the only large container of PC skyr that they had. The cashier pointed out to me that it would reach its best before date in two days and since I chose to buy it anyway she gave me a discount of $3. 

            At 13:00 my upstairs neighbour David took me to lunch at The Rhino. He had a regular burger and a Budweiser and I had the Wild Boar Burger and a pint of Creemore. I didn’t really like the boar. It tasted kind of pungent and not as sweet as pork. David surprised me with a couple of things. About fifteen years ago he was suicidal. He told me that his favourite music is hard rock, like Black Sabbath and The Scorpions. I didn’t expect that from an Ethiopian black man. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride with the intention of going downtown. I was wearing my hoody but I stopped on Brock to take it off, take my long sleeved shirt from my backpack and put that on, and then put the hoody back on. That was comfortable but I got caught in a sun shower at Bloor and Shaw and turned south. The rain was icy cold and I was uncomfortable and so even after the rain stopped when I got to Dundas, I continued home. 

            I weighed 85.7 kilos at 16:45. 

            I spent about half an hour chiseling black quartz and amethyst from a piece of the rock I found six years ago. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:34. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my August 14 song practice I synchronized the video with the audio. Then I saved a copy as a new project called "Megaphor (electric)". I only need the final take of Megaphor from that day and so I removed the earlier parts. I saved as I went along but somehow the video went black. I closed the session down without saving it just in case the black video was something I’d done. When I restarted it I had the video back but somehow I’d deleted all of my takes of Megaphor. So I had to go back to the August 14 project and save it as "Megaphor (electric)" again. That’s where I left off and so I’d taken two steps forward and one step back.

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song "Megaphor" I managed to for the most part synchronize the concert video with the studio audio for my line, “I’m just a little too bitter for its sheltered taste”. Next I have to try to line them up for, “It tries to clean me off with screams of ultrasound”. 

            I cleaned and scanned another uncut strip of colour negatives. These were shots of the Toronto city dump. I remember taking these shots because they were really spectacular. The dump is an amazingly colourful place. I know I went there with a truck driver on a job and I even took some profile shots of the driver. My memory is a little vague on when this was but I think it’s probably from the late 80s when I was temping at the Ministry of Government Services. If that’s the case then the driver in the shots is Bud, who always wore a Budweiser baseball cap with “Bud” on the front. The truckdrivers at that place were all characters. Maybe there’ll be more shots from around that time among the negatives and slides in the wooden cabinet. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a cut up slice of ham, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 4 and 5 of Green Acres. 

            In this story Lisa Douglas goes to New York to make arrangements for her and Oliver’s furniture to be shipped to Hooterville. The rumour running through the valley is that Mr. Douglas’s wife left him. While she is there she and her mother go to see a decorator about fixing up the house in Hooterville. But the plans that are drawn up are to turn two acres of the property into a country club with a pool, a tennis court, and a putting green. Meanwhile Oliver is drawing up plans for his farm that don’t fit with Lisa’s plans. When she comes back he tells her there isn’t going to be a pool, a tennis court, or a putting green because that plan would cost him half a million dollars. Oliver goes to talk with his neighbour Ben Miller to ask his advice on farming. He says the soil needs liming but he should get in touch with the county agent to find out what to plant. Haney tries to unload a cow named Eleonor on Oliver but he won’t bite. However when Lisa comes back Haney drives her home from the depot and convinces her that Oliver has his heart set on Eleonor and so she buys the cow.

            In the second story Haney rents a rooster named Bertram to Oliver. The thing is that same rooster was already on the farm in the second episode but the writers treat it like this is the first time we’ve seen it. Hank Kimble the county agent arrives. Hank gives Oliver the numbers for a roofer and a plumber. When Eb tells Hank that Haney sold Eleonor the cow to Oliver they both crack up laughing. Hank takes soil samples to test and find out what crops are best. Oliver asks Hank his honest opinion of his farm but he avoids the question. Oliver goes into Hooterville and gets Sam to call the plumber, and the roofer, and to arrange for the phone to be installed. The next morning Bertram doesn’t crow. Haney comes with a hen named Alice and says Bertram didn’t crow because Alice wasn’t there and she won’t lay eggs without Bertram. The plumber, the roofer and the phone person arrive. The plumber follows the pipes to the roof and loses them and Jack Parker the roofer follows the plumber to the basement because he’s got his hammer. After several hours of work the plumber says the plumbing is connected and they’ll have running water as soon as they connect the pump to the electricity. At that point Oliver remembers that he doesn’t have electricity. He already put in an application for power and was told it would take six months. The phone is an extremely old fashioned wall phone in which one listens with the hand held part and talks into the wall. Oliver tries to call the electric company but the phone guy says it will take three months to run a phone line to his house. I’m wondering why the Douglases can get a phone line when the Shady Rest Hotel on Petticoat Junction can’t. I guess maybe they are closer to the road since Oliver has a car and can use it while there is no road running to the Shady Rest. Oliver rents a rickety old generator from Haney and so they are able to sometimes have power. That night Bertrum crows and so Oliver thinks it’s morning and gets up. 

            Jack Parker the roofer was played by John Harmon, whose acting career spanned six decades. His first major credit was in I Was Framed in 1942. He co-starred in The Monster of Piedras Blancas. He appeared in the Star Trek episodes The City on the Edge of Forever and A Piece of the Action. He played several criminals on The Adventures of Superman. He also worked as a production manager. He collected first editions of Mark Twain’s works and became a used book dealer.