James Cranna

            On Saturday morning I revised my translation of the eighth and ninth verses of "C'était une pauv' gosse des rues" (She Was a Poor Child of the Road) by Boris Vian. There’s just one more verse for which to adjust my English adaptation. 

            I worked out the chords for the intro and for half of the first verse of “Baille baille Samantha” (Yawn Yawn Samantha) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went to the Vina Pharmacy to get them to ask my doctor to renew my prescription for Betaderm. Then I went up the street to Better Image with a decades old roll of film that I found among my unscanned negatives and slides. The guy behind the counter warned me that the film will have been damaged by the rusted canister but I told him to do it anyway. I had to pay first but that might have been just for me. He does a shitload of business shooting passport photos for Tibetans and he told them they wouldn’t have to pay until they got their pictures. Maybe he thought that I wouldn’t pay if the negatives are damaged. It sounds like a shitty and inconsistent way of treating customers. 

            I went to No Frills where I bought four bags of grapes, a pack of blackberries, a pack of chicken legs, a hunk of cornmeal bacon, olive oil, two containers of skyr, a jug of orange juice, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. I forgot to buy garbage bags but I still have one extra. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before lunch. I had Ritz crackers with roasted red pepper dip and a glass of limeade. 

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

            I weighed 85.8 kilos at 17:30, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening in two weeks. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. 

            I reviewed the videos of my song practice performances of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” from September 7 to part of September 11. On September 7, 10, and 11 I played my Martin acoustic guitar. On September 7 the take at 13:30 wasn’t bad but there was traffic noise and not great light. On September 10 the take at 14:45 wasn’t bad and on September 11 I left off at the beginning of a new take at 13:00. On September 8 and 9 I played my Kramer electric guitar but on September 8 I didn’t video record a complete take because it got cut off when the battery went to sleep. On September 9 the take at 12:30 was a little off in places. 

            I watched the first half of the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday. Duke Lambert and his family, along with the family of Grazia, his son’s intended, are travelling through mountain roads to his estate when their two cars are overtaken by a strange shadow. The Duke’s car hits a man and his horse cart but miraculously no one is hurt. They all feel they’ve had a brush with death. When they get to the estate Corrado continues to try to get Grazia to set a date for their marriage but she says she can’t get married to him until she finds a certain kind of personal happiness that she can’t put her finger on. She goes by herself in the garden but later she screams and faints. When she comes to she says she was touched by a shadow and it was cold. She goes to bed and so does everyone but the count who lingers in the dark for a while. Suddenly a black, cloaked, partly transparent figure steps out of the garden and addresses him. He explains that he is a vagabond of space, and he is the point between eternity and time. To put it simply he is Death. He says he wants to take a three day holiday from being Death and proposes that he stay as the count’s guest while doing so. He promises that no one will die while he is there. The count accepts his proposal and says that he has rooms already prepared for Prince Sirki. Death assures him that Sirki will not be coming, implying that he has already died. The count says that no one at the house besides him has ever seen Prince Sirki and so Death says he will come to stay then as Prince Sirki. Later that night he arrives as Sirki and the family is already up to greet him and they find him charming. He is about to go to his rooms when he sees Grazia on the stairs and it seems that they are both smitten with each other immediately. The next day all of the flowers that should not be blooming are in bloom, even though it is fall. So far I haven’t found anything to use from the film for my “Megaphor” video project but I suspect that there will be something at the end. I’ll probably finish the movie tomorrow. 

            I made four lean ground beef patties and grilled them in the oven. I had one on seven grain bread with chili sauce, Dijon, pickle slices, horseradish, roasted red pepper dip and a beer while watching season 4, episodes 10 and 11 of Green Acres. 

            In the first story preparations are underway for the hundredth anniversary of the founding of Hooterville. Joe Carson is in charge and a song about the founder Horas Hooter has been composed by Ralph the carpenter and Arnold the pig. Joe has sent invitations to all 52 governors of the United States in hopes that one will show up so they can serenade him. Sam declares no governor is going to come and it’s going to be a big bust like everything Joe plans. Joe responds by indignantly resigning and so they put Oliver in charge. He does research into the founding of Hooterville by Horas Hooter. He has the idea of putting on a play about the founding. Hooter came east from California to escape the gold rush with $800 to buy a farm. We see him, played by Oliver, arrive in a saloon and he meets a saloon girl named Doris, played by Lisa. She’s a card shark and almost wins all his money but she is arrested before she has a chance. But the sheriff gives Horus's money to the last person Doris ripped off. Doris decides to marry Horas and she wins him the money to buy his farm. The committee isn’t sure they like Oliver’s idea for a play but they say they have a long time to think about it because the centennial isn’t for another year. 

            In the second story Lisa doesn’t want to go out because it’s Tuesday the 12th which is very unlucky in Hungary. She says it will only counter the bad luck if Oliver wears his hat sideways. They go to pick up their mail and Lisa receives a letter containing a blue feather. She says it’s a Romani curse. She fills a green handbag with sauerkraut, cream cheese, egg whites, and chicken fat and has Oliver hang it outside the house to counteract the curse. But when Eb sees it he says that will put a curse on Hooterville and bring a month and a half drought. He plots with Hank on counteracting the hex. They fill a red handbag with jelly, bicarbonate and three hairs from a cow’s tail and hang it with the green handbag. Now Lisa thinks the curse on her is back again. Then two hippies knock on Oliver’s door asking for a handout. They are driving a horse drawn wagon similar to a Romani wagon. Oliver tells them he’ll give them $5 if they take away both handbags. He tells Lisa that the Romani lifted the curse and all she has to do is burn the blue feather so she does. The hippies hear on the radio that the blue feather was a promotion for Blue Feather nail polish. 

            One of the hippies was played by Chris Ross, who was a member of the improv group The Committee. He had a skit in which he would dress like an orthodox Jew and sing These Boots Are Made for Walkin in a Yiddish accent. He had another character called Danny D’Marko who was a lounge singer who would sing I Am the Walrus as a slow love song. The members of the Committee performed live and also did sketches on a short lived show called The Music Scene. He died of a heroin overdose in 1970. 

            The other hippy was played by James Cranna, who was also a member of The Committee. He went on to write and perform in advertizing and also to teaching improv. He did voice work for animated segments on Sesame Street such as the voice of Cyrus the Magpie. He did voices for The Ewok Adventure movie and the Ewoks TV series. He played a liquor store thief in American Graffiti and was a story editor for Lavern and Shirley. Some called him the Ferlinghetti of improv.