Robert Sampson

            On Thursday morning I memorized the first verse of “Suck baby suck” by Serge Gainsbourg. I also revised and updated the song through my translation. The song has a lot of references to compact discs and laser discs, which is old technology and so I’ve changed it to references to downloading, streaming, and usb sticks. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second session of four. 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I painted some more primer on a few smudged and nicked parts of the Masonite I’d glued to the floor in front of the kitchen counter. Mostly though I painted a coat of primer onto the outside of the bathroom door. It needs another coat and I have more than enough primer left in the can to do that tomorrow. I’ll also continue to touch up the Masonite. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on my way back. I bought five bags of grapes, two packs of raspberries, bananas, five-year-old cheddar, three bags of skim milk, two boxes of spoon size shredded wheat, and a pack of toilet paper. I looked for Arm and Hammer toothpaste but they didn’t have any. There was none at No Frills on Saturday either. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:00. 

            I compared the September 6 video of my song practice performance of Sixteen Tons of Dogma to that of August 9. The September 6 take really isn’t very good and so I wonder why I highlighted it. I compared September 7 to August 9 and September 7 had bad light and a lot of traffic noise. I compared September 10 to August 9 and it doesn’t look as good, nor am I as engaging. So August 9 is the best take of this year’s sessions but I’m not going to upload it to You Tube. I think I already play it better now and I’m sure I can make a better recording of it when I start a new project in six months. Tomorrow I’ll start reviewing the song practice videos of “L’accordion” and “The Accordion”. I’m pretty sure I’ll find a couple of uploadable takes from this year’s recordings of those songs. 

            I downloaded a 2.25 minute video of the simulation of the formation of a spiral galaxy. I converted it to WMV and imported it into my “Megaphor” video project in Movie Maker. I put it at the end of the timeline and started editing it because I only need about six seconds. I’m going to try to get the movement of the stars dancing together to fit the rhythm of my song. 

            I didn’t have any time before dinner to scan any of my last 35 negatives but I should have time tomorrow. 

            I grilled four chicken legs and had one with a potato and gravy while watching season 4, episodes 20 and 21 of Green Acres. 

            In the first story Oliver, Lisa, Hank, Eb, and Arnold the pig are all still in Washington. Lisa decides to go and have lunch with the president and asks Eb if he wants to come. Oliver tries to tell her that one can’t just drop in and have lunch with the president of the United States. She says he invited her. But when she gets to the White House gates a guard stops her. They argue for a few minutes and finally she just walks past him. He calls a red alert and she and Eb are arrested. When Oliver goes to see her in jail she explains to him that four years ago she was dancing with the president and he invited her to drop in for lunch. This show aired in February of 1969 and so Richard Nixon had just become president. Four years before that it would have been Lindon Johnson. It would have made more sense for it to have been Kennedy that invited her but that would have had to be at least six years before the airing of the show. Oddly, in the same jail are Hank and Arnold. Hank got put in jail for walking through a plate glass window at the Secretary of Agriculture’s office. Arnold got arrested for trashing a laundromat after they wouldn’t let him wash his clothes there because he was a pig. Oliver gets them all out and they head back to Hooterville. Meanwhile Haney is minding Oliver’s farm but he also decides to rent it out as an inn. A couple of hillbillies named Walter and Minnie, with six children rent the place and enjoy dressing up in Oliver and Lisa’s clothes. When Haney learns that Oliver and Lisa have returned he stalls them and then convinces Walter that Lisa has come to have a baby there. The family clear out and Oliver and Lisa return. But Walter comes back because he forgot one of his kids who got stuck in the fireplace. He also congratulates Lisa on her pregnancy. Lisa now believes she is pregnant.

            The White House guard was played by Robert Sampson, whose first screen acting job was an appearance on the TV series Meet Corliss Archer. He played Father Fitzgerald on the sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie. He co-starred in the film The Dark Side of the Moon. 

            In the second story Lisa has made friends with a deer named Clarissa who is also a mother of four. Lisa learns that deer hunting season is about to start and all the men are participating. She circulates a petition with a list of reasons to sign. The unspoken item at the bottom convinces everyone and she gets 300 signatures. The governor comes to Hooterville to hunt and Lisa approaches him with her petition. He reads it and the item at the bottom is that Oliver will give $100 to each person who signs. The governor tears up the petition. Oliver sends Lisa away to New York but when she gets to Pixley she rents a small two seater plane and shouts down to all the deer to run for their lives, thus ruining hunting season.