Jack Weston

            On Tuesday morning I searched for the chords for “On fait des rêves” (We Keep Dreaming) by Boris Vian. No one has posted them and so I’ll start working them out tomorrow. 

            I memorized the second verse of “China Doll” by Serge Gainsbourg. The third and final verse, except for the last two lines is just a repetition of the first verse and so I should have the song nailed down on Wednesday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of two sessions. 

            I weighed 87.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I took an early bike ride because I wanted to start looking for an effects pedal. I stopped at Long and McQuade where I learned that one effects pedal is for one effect and if I want distortion and reverb I would need two pedals, or a multiple effects pedal system and also a power supply. They had a used HOF pedal for $50. I rode to Yonge and Bloor and then down to Richmond as usual, turning back up to Queen at Peter. I stopped at Steve’s music where I got a lot more help. What I discovered is that what I’m looking for is not an effects pedal but a switch pedal to connect to the back of my amp so I can access its built in distortion and reverb. He looked up the recommended switch pedals for my Roland Jazz Chorus 50. They had Boss FS5L single switch pedals that can be linked together but the FS6L is already double and cheaper than two, and which they didn’t have in the store right now. I’ll look at five more places before I make a decision. 

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home, where I bought toilet paper and organic whole milk. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos at 14:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since May 13. 

            I took a late siesta at 14:30 and slept until 16:30. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos at 16:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:45. 

            I published the video of my acoustic performance of “Là-bas c'est naturel” by Serge Gainsbourg and uploaded it to YouTube. 

            I copied the Movie Maker project of my September 11 song practice and saved it as “Kenya”. I isolated “Kenya” from the other songs. This was already in synch and so I didn’t have to do any tedious work lining up the video with the audio. I should have the video published tomorrow and will probably upload it to YouTube on Thursday. 

            I continued searching for a Greta Garbo clip to match the end of the third verse of my song “Angeline” for my Movie Maker project to make a video for the studio recording. I was trying to find something to fit the line, “restless days of hopeless sleep” but so far haven’t found anything. I’ll look again on Wednesday, starting from the beginning of her filmography. I’ll read the plot synopses for the ones that have them and see if anything looks like it would have what I’m looking for. 

            I scanned most of the penultimate box of slides. The first half were mostly reflections of me and the street in a vertically distorting mirror. The second half so far consists of shots of the skating rink at Hazelton Lanes in Yorkville. There are seven slides left in that box. 

            I had a potato with gravy, and the last parts of the whole chicken I roasted last week: two wings and the spine. I ate while watching the last two episodes of season 2 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Darrin is disappointed that Larry didn’t give him the Waterhouse Thumbtacks account. But then he goes to work and finds that Larry changed his mind this morning. Then Larry tells him that he ran into Samantha in the parking lot on his way in. Suddenly Darrin suspects that Samantha used witchcraft on Larry to make him change his mind. Now Darrin says he doesn’t want the account. He tries to sabotage the account by talking to the old fashioned Waterhouse like a hipster and giving him crazy ideas for commercials showing people sitting on thumbtacks. But Waterhouse loves the ideas. Suddenly Darrin thinks that he has been charmed and everything he guesses turns out to be true. He asks the secretary Betty where she was born and when she says Minneapolis he bets Larry that she wasn’t. He tells her to call her mother to ask. She does so and learns that she was born in St. Paul. He tells Samantha that she’s the reason for his newfound confidence but he doesn’t tell her that he thinks she deliberately charmed him with magic. But then Samantha hears from Larry that he’s worried about Darrin. He relates how when he first gave him the Waterhouse account he said something about not wanting his life run by his wife. Now she realizes he thinks she cast a spell so now she has to teach him a lesson. When Darrin comes home he finds the interior of his house transformed. A butler greets him and he learns that there is an upstairs maid, a chef and a valet as well. He says he can’t accept it because he didn’t earn it. Samantha names all of his big accounts and tells him she helped him land them all. He argues that he landed those accounts because he has talent. Then Samantha says he forgot about having faith. Then she tells him she didn’t help with Waterhouse and he feels like a heel. He apologizes and Samantha changes everything back. 

            The second story must have been delayed in its release because it still features Alice Pearce as Gladys Kravitz even though she died at least a month earlier. Gladys’s brother Louis is a concert violinist who hasn’t done a concert since he was nine. He was a child prodigy playing Carnegie Hall when his pants fell down. He’s now a grown man who moves from relative to relative and doesn’t do concerts because he is terrified. Gladys’s husband Abner calls him “the chicken fiddler”. Samantha decides to help by arranging for him to play a hospital benefit. He says he can’t do it but Samantha keeps pushing. He tries to smash his violin but she renders it indestructible. Then she changes it back but then Abner accidentally sits on it. She says they have an extra, then she goes to the closet and conjures up a Stradivarius. The night of the benefit he tries to escape to the airport in a cab but Samantha makes the cab drive backwards at high speed back to the benefit. He tries to escape down a manhole but Samantha makes the tunnel lead to a vent in the backstage wall. Samantha gets him started and then the concert is a success. Months later Louis lands a gig on national television. Samantha and Darrin are watching him perform on the Kravitz’s TV when Louis’s pants fall down. 

            Louis was played by Jack Weston, who really did play violin quite well in this episode. He acted from the age of 10 to 19 at the Cleveland Playhouse. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance on Broadway in The Floating Lightbulb. His film debut was in Stagestruck in 1958. He co-starred in Fuzz, Gator, and A New Leaf. He starred in The Ritz. He co-starred in the TV series Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers and The Hathaways. He starred in the sitcom The Four Seasons. His brother was porn producer and director Anthony Spinelli.