Benny Baker

            On Sunday morning I memorized the third and fourth verses of “Shotgun” by Serge Gainsbourg. There are only two verses left and so I might have the whole song nailed down on Monday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second session of two. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my Kramer electric guitar. 

            I weighed 86.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I removed the rest of the painters tape that I’d put on the bottom of the kitchen counter before painting the floor. A lot of it got stuck on by the paint and I had to use a box cutter blade and tweezers to peel it off bit by bit. I still have to touch up some of the black squares of the checkerboard pattern. I might have time to do that on Tuesday. School starts this week and so this will be the end of any home improvement projects until spring. 

            I weighed 86.9 kilos before lunch. I had Triscuits with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of half calamansi lemonade and half pure cranberry juice. It was very sour. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back to buy five bags of grapes. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos at 17:30, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening in two weeks. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:53. 

            I reviewed the videos of my song practice performances of “Joanna” and “Joanna Dances Lightly” from September 12 to 15. On September 12 I played “Joanna” on my Martin acoustic guitar and it was okay but the light was bad. On September 14 I played it on my Kramer electric guitar and the take at 26:15 wasn’t bad. On September 13 I played “Joanna Dances Lightly” on the Martin and the take in Part B at 12:00 was pretty good. On September 15 I played it on the Kramer and the take at 7:45 in part B was okay. I compared the video of my song practice performance of “Joanna” on August 5 with that of August 9. August 9 was a bit fast and I fumbled on at least one chord and so August 5 is ahead just off the post. I watched August 11 but I need to watch August 5 again to compare. 

            I imported the Alice in Wonderland video into my “Angeline” Movie Maker project and put it at the end of the timeline. I started editing out everything but the part where Alice is falling but after a few seconds the screen went black. I had to keep closing and restarting Movie Maker because it kept on blacking out and it was only for that video. The main video still appeared on the screen. Finally I got it down to just the falling sequence but right now I just need a small part of that to appear just before the line, “I feel I’m falling through your sadly spoken dream”. I might use some more of it later. 

            I made pizza on two halves of a loaf of flat bread with Basilica sauce, a chopped beef burger and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 6, episodes 18 and 19 of Green Acres.

            In the first story, much to Oliver’s annoyance, Lisa has agreed to have Arnold the pig stay with them while Fred and Doris Ziffel have the flu. Oliver and Lisa drive to Pixley and take Arnold with them. Oliver makes Arnold wait in the car while they go into the drug store. While they are there Arnold witnesses a bank robbery. Lisa understands Arnold’s oinks but before he can describe the crooks he loses his voice. A day or so later while Lisa is treating Arnold’s throat, one of the crooks comes into Sam’s store and hears Hank say that Arnold is a witness to the robbery. He asks where to find Arnold and Hank tells him. The crooks arrive at the Douglas place and find Eb with Arnold in the barn. They think that Eb is Arnold and take him hostage. Then Arnold gets his voice back and tells Lisa that Eb is in danger. She makes Oliver come with her as she follows Arnold to the hideout of the robbers. They are captured and are about to be used to help the crooks get through the police roadblocks when Arnold pushes a ladder on top of them. The one with the gun drops it and Oliver picks it up and captures the crooks. 

            In the second story Oliver has gotten an oil stain on his suit jacket because he always does his farm work in a business suit. Lisa says that her uncle has sent from Hungary a bottle of the spot remover that he invented. She puts some on the stain and it disappears. She gives some to Doris Ziffel and she uses it to remove a carpet stain that’s been there for years. Hank has tossed Sam’s new toupee into the pickle barrel because he thought it was an animal attacking Sam’s head and the brine has turned it green. Lisa gives some of the cleaning fluid to Sam and his toupee comes out as good as new. She also gives some to Haney who immediately takes it to be analyzed so he can reproduce it. A cleaning product salesman comes to Sam’s store and hears about the spot remover. He goes to talk to Lisa about it and she decides to demonstrate the miraculous product by spilling ketchup, mustard and coffee on his suit. But then she discovers that she’s out of spot remover. Haney comes and tells her that the spot remover is nothing but cabbage soup. Lisa boils Mr. Wilkins’s suit in cabbage soup and the stains come out. Shortly after that everything that was treated with the spot remover begins to dissolve. Wilkins walks away from the phone booth after calling his company to say they should market the product and he’s only wearing his underwear. 

            Bert the pharmacist who analyzed the spot remover was played by Benny Baker, who started out in vaudeville and burlesque in the 1920s and then became a slapstick performer in silent films. He was a member of the Lambs acting club of New York City. In the 1930s he was under contract with Paramount and played a lot of small roles. He co-starred in The Hell Cat, Annapolis Farewell, Lady Be Careful, Mind Your Own Business, The Crime Nobody Saw, Touchdown Army, and She Married a Cop. He made many guest appearances on television as well.