Ray Teal

            On Sunday morning I finished memorizing "C'était une pauv' gosse des rues" (She Was a Poor Child of the Street) by Boris Vian. It took me by surprise that I was able to nail down the final verse so easily. Tomorrow I’ll search for the chords. 

            I memorized the first verse of “L'amour de moi” (The Whole of My Love) by Serge Gainsbourg. It has a baroque melody so I was guessing Gainsbourg lifted it from Bach. But after writing this I looked it up and found that the melody is based on an old French folk song from the 15th Century called “L’amour de moy”:

L’amour de moy s’y est enclose 

Dedans un joli jardinet 

Où croît la rose et le muguet 

Et aussi fait la passerose 

Ce jardin est bel et plaisant 

Il est garni de toutes flours 

On y prend son ébattement 

Autant la nuit comme le jour 

Hélas ! Il n’est si douce chose 

Que de ce doux rossignolet 

Qui chante au soir, au matinet 

Quand il est las, il se repose 

Je la vis l’autre jour, cueillir 

La violette en un vert pré

La plus belle qu’oncques je vis 

Et la plus plaisante à mon gré 

Je la regardai une pose 

Elle était blanche comme lait 

Et douce comme un agnelet 

Et vermeillette comme rose 

            Gainsbourg’s first verse is pretty much the same as the original but then he takes it to a darker place about the love interest being a murdered sex worker. The original was found among one hundred and two other songs in the Bayeux Manuscript in the 16th Century. Apparently Gainsbourg wrote his version sometime between 1950 and 1952. I guess I’ll write an English version of this as well. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the third session of four. 

            I weighed 86 kilos before breakfast.

            I returned the two unused tubes of construction glue to the hardware store and got $21 and change back. But it hadn’t occurred to me that I wouldn’t be getting cash back and so I had to go home and get my debit card to complete the transaction. I should have realized that since I’d paid by debit I would get my refund that way as well.

            I started looking into Guernica editions to get an angle on what kind of cover letter I should write when I send them my manuscript. Albert Moritz said he went to their recent launch and a couple of works made him think that mine might be a good fit. I’ll have to ask him which ones. Their window for submissions seems to only be the month of February. 

            I weighed 86 kilos before lunch. I had Cheez-it crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I had to stop to pee at McDonalds at Yonge and College. 

            I spent about ten minutes chiseling black quartz from the rock that I found six years ago.

            I weighed 85.6 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:45. 

            I opened a Movie Maker project for the video and audio recordings of my August 11 song practice. I managed to almost synchronize the video and the audio. I should have that done tomorrow and then I’ll create a separate project for that date’s take of “Le temps des yé-yé”. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song Megaphor I removed the images of flying gods that I’d inserted and then just reinserted three of them: Anteros, Helios, and Mercury; this time more carefully fitting the beat of the line, “spirals endlessly inward to …” Then I synchronized the concert video with the studio audio for when I shout, “god in my head”. What follows is the instrumental, which is longer in the concert video, so after the camera pans from me to Brian on the keyboard, while it’s panning back to me I need to cut some of the video. I removed some of it but I need to take out more before I start singing the last verse. I might have that done tomorrow.

            I cut the strip of colour negatives that I scanned yesterday into strips of five, put them in an envelope, then labeled and filed them. I’m going to need some new envelopes soon. I pulled out another uncut strip but didn’t have time to clean it before dinner. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episodes 2 and 3 of Green Acres. 

            In the first story Haney’s well is dry and he hires Willy the Witcher to find another one. He does locate one but the minute the water goes on at Haney’s place the water goes off at Oliver’s farm. Oliver hires Willy and digs another well but that causes the well to go dry at the Ziffel place. When Oliver loses his water again he calls a meeting and proposes they build a reservoir. Hank Kimball conducts a survey and finds that the best location for a reservoir in the valley is on Oliver’s farm. Obviously Oliver doesn’t want to sacrifice his farm for a reservoir so he comes up with an alternative. A pipeline is built from the reservoir in the nearby town of Pixley and a pump is set up to send the water through. But the day that the pump is switched on it blows out the power throughout the valley and so Hooterville returns to the old system of using Willy to find wells that compete with one another. 

            In the second story the Ziffels decide to take a second honeymoon and the Douglases agree to take care of Arnold the pig while they are gone. They bring his crib, his TV, and a list of dietary instructions but as soon as they leave Oliver throws all that out the window and tries to treat Arnold like a regular pig. He makes him sleep in the barn and Arnold cries very loudly. In the middle of the night there is a knock on the door. Oliver answers it and Arnold comes running in to sleep in his crib. The next day Arnold receives a letter from the draft board telling him to report for service. Oliver ignores the letter since Arnold is a pig but Mr. Grimes and Mr. Collins of the Selective Services Board don’t know that. They think they’ve finally gotten their first draft dodger and try to track Arnold down. They talk to Lisa and she says Arnold is a pig but they say they don’t care about his table manners and he still has to report. Oliver is amused and decides to take Arnold to the draft board to show them what a dumb mistake they made. But the desk sergeant thinks Oliver’s claim that Arnold is pig is an elaborate cover up for the real Arnold Ziffel. The FBI comes to investigate and warn Oliver that if he tells them one more time that the pig is Arnold Ziffel they’ll put him in jail. He does and they do. The Ziffels are called in Niagara Falls and although they just got there they head back to Hooterville. That problem is cleared up but then Ralph Monroe gets a draft notice too. Oliver takes Ralph to the draft board and the sergeant thinks she’s just a guy in a dress. He tells her to take off her clothes and she starts to do so but Oliver stops her. Ralph asks if she can be in the same outfit with her cousin. The sergeant asks, “What’s his name?” and she says, “Louise”. The sergeant thinks he’s going crazy. 

            Mr. Grimes was played by Ray Teal, who worked his way through college playing saxophone in local bands. He had his own band for ten years. He played Little John in a 1946 Robin Hood picture. He had a recurring role as a cop on the sitcom Where’s Raymond? He played Sheriff Roy Coffee on Bonanza.