Dave Madden

            On Saturday morning I continued working out the chords for “Aberdeen et Kowloon” by Serge Gainsbourg but didn’t get much done because the power went off. It was only off for a couple of minutes but it took quite a while to restart my computer and that ate into my time. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the first of four sessions. It’s now past the three week mark that my amplifier has been in the shop. 

            I weighed 87.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I hooked up my bike trailer and headed for the supermarket. I stopped at Freedom Mobile to pay for my June phone plan but they said their system was down until at least Wednesday. I would have to go to another Freedom store if I want to pay before then. 

            At No Frills I bought five bags of cherries, two packs of raspberries, bananas, a sack of potatoes, a pack of chicken drumsticks, a bag of multigrain pizza crusts, three bags of skim milk, dental floss, Basilica sauce, a container of skyr, and a jug of lemon iced tea. The cashier was offering bottles of strawberry-banana Body Armour, some kind of new energy drink, so I took one. Everybody else was happy to get something for free too. It was a little easier to grocery shop with the trailer this time but the plastic milk crate doesn’t serve as a very big basket. I got notice from Urbane Cyclist that they have the marketing bag that goes with my Burley trailer in stock now. Maybe I’ll take an early bike ride and check it out tomorrow. 

            I weighed 88.2 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been at midday since February 19. I had a toasted bagel with liverwurst and a glass of iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos at 17:30. 

            I deleted all of the MOV files of my 2022 song practices and freed up almost 40 gigabytes. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:43. 

            I uploaded my electric version of “Kenya” to YouTube, so now I’m done with playing that song during my daily rehearsals and I’ll add “Les Joyeux Bouchers” (The Happy Butchers) by Boris Vian. It’s a longer song that I haven’t fully learned, but doing it every day I should nail it down fairly quickly.

            I reviewed my song practice performances of “The Post Colonial Breakdown” and “Mamadou” from August 4 and 5 of last year. My electric performance of “The Post Colonial Breakdown” on August 4 was okay but there was traffic noise. My acoustic performance of “Mamadou” on August 5 was fine but there was even more traffic noise. 

            I watched another half hour of the Greta Garbo silent film Wild Orchids: 

            John and Lillie Sterling have come to Java because John wants to invest in a tea plantation. On the way they meet Prince de Gance who Lillie witnessed whipping one of his servants on the boat. De Gance has designs on Lillie and has already kissed her once. The prince has invited them to stay at his estate while they are in Java. He shows them their room and Lillie notes with pleasure that there is a double bed since they tend to sleep in twin beds. Lillie is disappointed when she learns that this chamber is just for her while John is pleased that he will have his own bedroom. That night they are entertained by authentic Javanese dancers, first men and then women. Lillie expresses admiration for the costume worn by the principal female and when she returns to her room it is presented to her. She puts it on and goes to John’s bedroom looking seductive. She wakes him to show her attire but he tells her she looks silly and to "take that junk off". She returns to her room dejected but then hears the call of the drums and goes out to her balcony. The prince comes out, takes her into his arms and kisses her. She panics and runs to her chamber. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, two sliced souvlaki, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 3, episodes 19 and 20 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story it’s Darrin’s day off but he stops enjoying it when his mother in law pops in. Samantha urges Endora to be nice to Darrin and she agrees to try. She sees him admiring the Reactor Mach II car in a magazine and she conjures it for him. He’s excited to have the futuristic automobile until he looks under the hood and sees that the car has a serial number. He realizes then that Endora didn’t copy the car but rather transported it from Detroit. Considering he could go to jail for holding the car, Darrin is upset at Endora. She indignantly leaves for the Mardis Gras. Darrin asks Samantha to send it back but she says only the witch that cast the spell can reverse it. Darrin’s boss Larry comes over with a client named Sheldrake who wants to drive the car around the block. While he’s driving Endora returns and sends the car back so Sheldrake finds himself in a mechanical engineering lab in Detroit. The two scientists were just discussing leaving the country to go into hiding for losing the car when they see it back again. Sheldrake calls Darrin from Detroit to say he has been given exclusive rights to use the car in the ad campaign for his sausages. 

            In the second story Aunt Clara drops or rather crashes in again. She is distraught because her powers are even worse than ever and is considering retirement and turning herself into something useful. Samantha takes Clara to Darrin’s office building to meet him for lunch but then forgets that he’d asked her to pick up his watch from the jeweller. She leaves Clara there while she pops away. Clara finds a rocking chair behind a curtain and dozes off. A cow is brought into the building by a rival ad campaign. When Samantha returns she can’t find Clara but sees the cow and thinks she’s metamorphosed into a bovine. She takes it home and talks to it, trying to get Clara to change herself back. Meanwhile Darrin finds Clara and calls Samantha who brings the cow back. 

            One of the mechanical engineers in the first story was played by Canadian actor Dave Madden, who took up magic in his teens and later used it when he became a comedian. He joined the US Air Force and was assigned to Special Services in Libya, which allowed him to entertain at camp shows. After his service he attended the University of Miami and graduated with a degree in Communications. He spent two years touring nightclubs in the south before moving to LA. After seeing him perform in a Beverly Hills nightclub, Frank Sinatra recommended Madden to Ed Sullivan, who booked him for three nights on his big show. This led to his first acting job which was an appearance on the sitcom Camp Runamuck. He was part of the cast of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In from 1968 to 1969. He played Reuben Kincaid the manager of The Partridge Family in all 96 episodes of the series. He played Bernard Walton on the radio series Adventures in Odyssey. He was the narrator for the first two seasons of Herman’s Head.