Dean Stockwell

            On Saturday morning I ran through singing “C’est le Bebop” by Boris Vian in French. Tomorrow I’ll start adjusting my translation. 

            I finished memorizing “Mon Légionnaire” by Raymond Asso and looked for the chords. I immediately found a set based on the version by Serge Gainsbourg and started transcribing it. It looks like there is at least one set based on Edith Piaf’s version and so I’ll copy those too and any others I can find. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of two sessions. It was minus 13 outside but very hot in my apartment and so I played with both living room windows open. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my Kramer electric guitar. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning in ten days.

            Around midday I went down to No Frills where I bought seven bags of green grapes, a pack of toilet paper, a big pack of roasted seaweed and a jug of orange juice. 

            I weighed 87.5 kilos before lunch. I had red lentil Harvest Snaps with spicy hummus and a glass of orange juice. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I was back to wearing my long underwear again. 

            I weighed 86.9 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:39. 

            I worked on my critical summary. I saved the four pages I’d written in case I need it for my essay. Then I copied it to another document and began editing it down so it will fit the two page requirement of the Critical Summary. I knocked off a page.

            I had a bowl of chili with plantain chips and a glass of orange juice while watching season 2, episode 8 of Burke’s Law. 

            The wealthy Lenore Wingfield has been found murdered in a boat in her pool with a twelve gauge shotgun. As usual Tim and Les are there first and then Burke. Her body was found by her friend Garnet who came from the mission downtown. Although she got her money from divorcing four rich husbands she preferred hanging out with the poor. Garnet grew up with Lenore in Tennessee. Burke finds a plastic ring by the pool. Lenore drew her calendar to cover the bathroom wall with the whole year. Her notes for that day were “Call Minnie Poo Undercover Affairs. Call lawyer – New will. Pick up wig. Tell Stinky where to go.” Garnet says Minnie Poo is Lenore’s sister and her real name is Meniletha Calhoun. Lenore’s last husband was Charles Wingfield and part of her divorce settlement was 25% of his plastics company. Tim and Les go to see Charles who they find photographing women who are modelling various plastic products. He says he divorced Lenore for his own health because she was too energetic for him. Charles broke a ten year engagement with Meniletha to marry Lenore and now he is engaged to Meniletha again. Burke goes to see Meniletha who runs a school for girls. She takes Burke to her room but all the young ladies come out of their rooms to look at Burke on the way. She says Undercover Affairs was a book Lenore was getting for her. Stinky is former governor Jim Clover. Lenore left almost everything to their nephew Jay Boy. Lenore brought Jay up from the south to pay for his education but he invested his college tuition in raising minks. Before Burke leaves she wants to show him her mission to keep the US mentally clean. She takes him to another room with a library of unfit books that she is dedicated to having banned. She reads him some passages from a book that she considers obscene. She says she wants his help to stamp out sex. He tells her he has a slight conflict of interest. Burke goes to see Jay Boy. He and Lenore had an argument about college the day before she died. Jay was with his girlfriend Lola when Lenor was killed. His ex-girlfriend Effie May is staying with him temporarily but she doesn’t know she’s his ex. She came there from back home to convince him to return. Effie comes home from shopping. She thinks Lenore wanted her to marry Jay. She says she never met Lenore but they corresponded. In the news there’s a report that Jim Clover’s construction company is merging with Lenore Wingfield’s real estate company. Also Clover’s daughter Rebecca is going to marry Jay Boy Calhoun. Burke goes to see Clover and pretends he’s a southerner so he’ll be more cooperative. Burke points out that Lenore had changed her mind about the merger before she was killed. Les finds that Wingfield was in Reno the night of the murder. The murder weapon has been found on the beach near Jay’s house. Burke goes there and finds a note that Effie has a new address. He also finds some plastic rings like the one at the murder scene. He goes to see Effie. She says Jay must have left the ring at Lenore’s. The rings are for tagging the legs of Effie’s chickens. She says Jay killed Lenore. Effie knows Jay plans to marry Rebecca and she’s angry. She says she went to see Lenore who laughed at her plastic wedding band so she shot her. 

            Jay Boy was played by a young Dean Stockwell, whose parents were both Broadway actors. At the age of seven Dean made his theatrical debut in The Innocent Voyage. His ten year old brother Guy was also in the show which ran for nine months. After the show Dean was signed to MGM and became a child star. At the age of 11 he won a Golden Globe for his role in Gentleman’s Agreement. He starred in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, The Careless Years, and The Boy With Green Hair. He co-starred in The Mighty McGurk and The Arnelo Affair. As an adult he co-starred in Compulsion, Rapture, Tracks, She Came to the Valley, and Long Day’s Journey Into Night. In the 60s he became a Hippy and friends with Neil Young and Dennis Hopper. He said it gave him the childhood he’d missed as a child star. He co-starred in Psych-Out, and Paris Texas. He starred in Police Trap, The Loners, The Legend of Billie Jean, Gardens of Stone, The Time Guardian, Banzai Runner, The Long Haul, Buying Up, and The Werewolf of Washington. He was nominated for a Best Supporting actor Academy Award for Married to the Mob. On 80s TV he co-starred in Quantum Leap and won a Golden Globe. He played the villain Colonel Grat on Star Trek Enterprise and the Cylon Cavil on Battlestar Galactica. He was also a collage artist and a sculptor. He designed the album cover for Neil Young’s American Stars and Bars. He co-directed the movie Human Highway with Neil Young.