Skip Young

            On Wednesday morning I revised my translation of the seventh verse of "C'était une pauv' gosse des rues" (She Was a Poor Child of the Road) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the second verse of “Baille baille Samantha” (Yawn Yawn Samantha) by Serge Gainsbourg and revised my translation of the first two verses. 

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

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I rode to Rottblott’s on Adelaide between Bathurst and Spadina. Mikey at Home hardware had told me that they have peel and stick tiles. They had a few but only ones with a kind of a stone wall pattern and no solid black and white ones. That means I’m back to the other plan of painting the kitchen floor area in front of the counter in a checkerboard pattern to resemble tiles. I might go and buy the paint tomorrow and maybe some clear shellac if it doesn’t dry too yellow. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch. I had Triscuits with roasted red pepper dip and a glass of limeade. 

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

            I weighed 85.3 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:08. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” from August 31 to September 1. In both sessions I played my Martin acoustic guitar. On August 31 the take at 19:00 was pretty good but the beginning of the ending was off. On September 1 the take at 12:15 wasn’t bad but the ending was a little off. 

            I downloaded the YouTube video of the computer generated 3D object of a Nataraj statue turning 360 degrees. I converted it to WMV and imported it to the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio audio recording of my song “Megaphor”. I placed it at the end of the timeline and began cutting it down so the rotation happens more quickly. I got it down from 25 seconds to 10 seconds but I only need half that and so I’ll work on it tomorrow. This previously crashed project is still functioning normally. 

            I cleaned and scanned an uncut strip of colour negatives. These were mostly of the Picnic For South Africa that I went to with Heidi in Queen’s Park in the summer of 1990. If I was with Heidi it would have been 1990 but I think Apartheid was already over by then, so I don’t know. There are 26 full sets of negatives left to scan. 

            I made pizza on naan with Bolognese sauce, roasted red pepper dip, hot salami and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 4, episodes 4 and 5 of Green Acres.

            In the first story Eb gets engaged to Lorelei Appleby after meeting her a day before and borrows Oliver’s convertible to drive to her place so he can ask for her hand in marriage. Mr. Appleby is fixing his truck so he can take his cabbages to market, which are already starting to smell. Eb tries to help him and causes the engine to drop out. So he lends Mr. Appleby Oliver’s car but he forgot to put gas in it and it stalls on the way to market. So now Mr. Appleby can’t earn the $180 he needs for his mortgage payment. Eb says he’ll get the money and Mr. Appleby says if he does they can talk about him marrying Lorelei. Eb gets the money by pawning Oliver’s cow Eleonor. Mr. Appleby tells Eb that if he stays away from his house for six months he’ll let him ask permission to marry her again. 

            In the second story Oliver gets two flat tires because of the poorly maintained road that runs through the county. He finds out that the person in charge of the roads is the state district representative Ben Hanks. Oliver tries to go to a Ben Hanks meeting to complain about the roads but Ben doesn’t really have to do anything. He stays in office by buying votes with gifts and so he is extremely popular. Oliver tries to run against him and gets no support. In fact he gets booed whenever he says anything negative about Hanks. 

            Ben’s campaign worker was played by Skip Young, whose first film appearances were at the age of four. He served as a Photographer’s Mate (Now called Mass Communication Specialist) in the US Navy during the Korean Police Action. Ozzie Nelson saw him performing at Knott’s Berry Farm and hired him to play Wally Plumstead on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Plumstead was Skip’s real last name. In 1973 he moved to Apple Valley, California where he became a radio personality and a judge of beauty pageants and cook offs.