Tommy Tedesco

            On Sunday morning I worked out the chords for the sixth verse of "C'était une pauv' gosse des rues" (She Was a Poor Child of the Street) by Boris Vian and for the intro and part of the first verse of “Your Under Arrest” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

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

            I weighed 85.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I finished painting the second coat of primer onto the edges and the hard-to-get-at spaces between my kitchen counter doors and drawers. I think I have just enough primer left for a third coat. 

            I weighed 85.7 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 tried to chisel some black quartz from a piece of the rock that I found six years ago. But now that the clocks have been turned back it’s too dark at around 17:00 to accurately work the hammer and chisel, at least when it’s cloudy. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:55. 

            In the Audacity project for my September 3, 2023 song practice I amplified the volume of my voice and added reverb to the guitar for the song “Time of the Yo-Yo”. Every time I added reverb it decreases the volume so I had to amplify the guitar again. I increased the reverb three times and amplified the guitar three times. Then I exported that session and replaced the other one I’d exported because it had been distorted and crackling. But this new one was distorted on that song in the same way. I went back into Audacity and exported the file as MP3 instead of WAV. This time it wasn’t distorted. In Movie Maker I started a project for my September 3 song practice. I imported the videos for that session and the audio that I’d just edited. I started cutting the beginning of the audio timeline. Tomorrow I might have the audio and video synchronized. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Megaphor” I finished reversing part of the clip of the film Ziegfeld Girl. I moved a section to earlier in the timeline and then I started removing small sections of the video that I don’t need. Right now the clip is over 47 seconds long but I only need about 4 seconds. 

            I scanned two sets of uncut colour negatives. The first has a lot of shots of flowers and also pictures of my late friend Mike Copping’s children Rachel and Noah. The second has photos of Rachel and her mother, so both must be from the fall of 1987 when I was sharing a house with them. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the second season finale and the third season premiere of Green Acres. In the first story it’s Eb’s birthday and he has woken up Sam at 4:00 to tell him to push the sale of a $14 transistor radio when Oliver comes in. Oliver wakes up with a message balloon tied to his finger, a message mouse trap snapping his toe and bumps into a big sign in the closet reminding him of a birthday. Oliver thinks it’s Lisa’s birthday and he rushes to Sam’s to buy a present for her. Sam pushes the radio and so Oliver buys it. When he gives it to Lisa she says her birthday is in two months. Eb eventually gets it and then becomes obsessed with winning a song identification contest. Whoever first guesses correctly all twelve songs that are played wins the prize of an all expenses paid trip to Las Vegas, Illinois. Every song sounds exactly the same as the previous one but Eb seems to be able to tell them apart. Oliver makes him leave the radio in the barn while they go to work in the fields but the radio gets knocked into Eleonor the cow’s hay and she eats it. They can still hear the radio from inside Eleonor’s stomach. Eb gets the first eleven songs right but just before the twelfth song is played Eleonor’s stomach changes the channel and so Eb loses. 

            In the second story the state senator is retiring at the age of 92 to settle down and raise a family. Sam goes to the state capital to discuss who to nominate for the new senator, and he suggests Oliver. Watkins and Simpson from the state senator nominating committee come to interview Oliver and then his neighbours. This whole story is a setup for flashbacks from previous episodes. But the senator decides not to retire because his 96 year old fiancé dumps him for being too young. 

            One of the prominent instruments in the Green Acres theme song was the lead electric guitar played by Tommy Tedesco. Between 1960 and 1980 he was one of the most in demand studio musicians on the west coast of the US. He is said to be the most recorded guitarist in history, having played on thousands of records and many hits. He played on Richard Harris’s “McCarthur Park”, Jack Nietzsche’s “The Lonely Surfer”, Wayne Newton’s “Danke Schoen”, The Ronette’s “Be My Baby”, Sam Cooke’s “Twistin the Night Away”, all of the 5th Dimension’s hits, and Nino Tempo and April Stevens’s version of “Deep Purple”. He wrote a regular column for Guitar Player called “Studio Log”. He wrote an autobiography called Confessions of a Guitar Player. He played on the soundtracks of The French Connection, Jaws, The Godfather, and The Deer Hunter. He also recorded a number of jazz records under his own name. He was a member of the band of studio musicians known as The Wrecking Crew.