John Fiedler

           On Friday morning I memorized the second and third verses and the chorus of “Et quand bien même” (And Even If) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are five more verses to nail down. 

            I played my new Gibson Les Paul during song practice. It sounded alarmingly distorted at first until I realized the gain on my audio interface was turned too high for that guitar. It was much better once the gain was down in the green range. This guitar will take some getting used to because it has a much beefier sound than the Kramer. The action is easy and it feels more conducive to playing rhythm than the Kramer. It also behaves more like my acoustic in certain sounds that I get when I’m playing, such as a dramatic sound on the upstroke that doesn’t show up with the Kramer. Song practice took longer than usual because of getting used to the Gibson and because I’ve started to learn some longer songs. 

            My digital scale has still not arrived. Apparently they tried to deliver it at 17:31 yesterday and by some fluke I didn’t hear them knock even though I was sitting with the windows open. When the package that was supposed to be shipped to Montreal arrived here in May the driver knocked loud enough to wake me from a siesta. Tracking at 10:00 says they will be here between 10:15 and 14:00.

            The new scale arrived a little after 11:30. Several minutes beforehand the tracking showed a map telling me that they were four stops away. That makes me think that yesterday when they said they tried to deliver but failed, that it was bullshit. I was constantly checking the tracking just before the time they claimed to have arrived and no map showed up saying they were a few stops away. Maybe the driver went to my number on Queen but in the east end near Greenwood. 

            The scale doesn’t take a CR2032 battery like the old one but rather two triple As. The ones I had in my drawer were dead and so I went out to the hardware store to buy four rechargeable ones. I noticed later that two triple A batteries came in the package but not rechargeables. Like the old scale, how it registers depends on where it is on my kitchen floor. When I get it into a position so it accurately shows the weight of my 4.5 kilos barbell I weighed 86 kilos, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since March 29, but I suspect this scale registers lighter than the other one. At the doctor’s last month I was heavier than my scale had indicated and so it makes me wonder whether this scale is as good as the other one was before it died. I tried it again at 13:00 and saw that I didn’t have the battery casing closed properly. Everywhere I positioned the scale it weighed what is supposed to be the 4.5 kilo barbell as 4.6 kilos. So it seems to register slightly heavier than accurate but it’s consistent. It weighed me as 88.3 kilos. The last time the other scale worked on June 3 I weighed 88.6 kilos in the morning, so my midday weight makes more sense than in the morning. I think the new scale is working properly so far.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I noticed that the people in charge of directing traffic in Toronto are no longer cops but rather “traffic agents”. 

            I weighed the barbell at 17:00 and it was consistently 4.55 kilos wherever I put the scale. Technically it’s a 10 pound barbell and 10 pounds is 4.53 kilos, so that’s close. I weighed 88.45 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:05. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “The Post Colonial Breakdown” and “Mamadou” from September 5 to 11. On September 5 and 9 I played “The Post Colonial Breakdown” on the electric guitar. On September 5 the take at 10:00 in part B was okay but there was a lot of traffic noise. On September 9 I had broken a string on the Kramer earlier on and had to play the Fibson. It didn’t sound good and mercifully the battery ran out of charge before I finished. On September 7 and 11 I played it on my Martin acoustic guitar. On September 7 the take at 9:45 in part B was pretty good and on September 11 the take at 5:15 in part B was pretty good and looked great. September 11 is synchronized in Movie Maker. On September 6 and 10 I played “Mamadou” on the Martin. On September 6 the take at 7:00 in part B was pretty good and this is synchronized in Movie Maker. On September 10 the take at 5:15 in part B was pretty good but the light wasn’t great. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Angeline” I synchronized the concert video with the studio audio for the line, “and since I can’t see the bottom…” Then it goes out of synch for “…with this tiny flash…” so I added another clip of Jimmy Stewart falling in the dream sequence of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. I got the concert video and the audio lined up again when I sing “…light beam…” but then it goes out of synch again for “…I’ll just resign myself to falling Angeline”. I’ll have to add another clip of falling tomorrow and then see when the video and audio go back in synch. 

            I ordered a Samsung solid state drive on Amazon, and it’s supposed to arrive on Monday. 

            I grilled ten chicken drumsticks and had two with a potato and gravy while watching season 3, episodes 31 and 32 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Aunt Clara comes to visit and while she’s sitting at the table with Samantha and Darrin she conjures a newspaper. The date on the paper is for the next day and she reads that Darrin’s boss and best friend Larry Tate is going to break his leg. Larry has gone on a romantic holiday with his wife Louise and Darrin insists that Samantha use witchcraft to find them and prevent Larry’s accident. They surprise the Tates by showing up at the same hotel where they are staying. Larry and Louise wanted to be alone but they find Darrin and Samantha following them wherever they go. Several times Samantha uses magic to prevent accidents. It’s really getting on the Tates’ nerves to have to Darrin and Samantha following them. Finally they tell them that this is their honeymoon. They’ve been married for ten years but this is their first honeymoon because when they went the first time Larry broke his leg. Samantha conjures Clara’s paper to find that it was the paper for tomorrow’s date but ten years ago. Samantha takes Larry and Louise back in time to before she and Darrin interfered and now they leave them alone. 

            In the second story Samantha is pushing Tabatha’s stroller through the park when she is accosted by a man who says, “Psst, hey girlie, come here I wanna talk to ya”. She avoids him and keeps walking but he follows her. She uses witchcraft to flip him into the fountain but he says it’s refreshing. He tells her his name is Fergus F. Finglehoff and that he’s a frog. He tells Samantha that he knows she’s a witch and he needs her to turn him back. She explains that if another witch made him a frog only they can reverse the spell. He follows her home and threatens to spread the rumour that she’s a witch throughout the neighbourhood if she doesn’t help him. He is there when Darrin comes home with Larry, Louise and the client Mr. Saunders of Saunders Soup. Samantha introduces Fergus as a professor and an expert on frogs. Samantha sends him back to the fountain before he says anything about actually being a frog. After the guests leave, Samantha and Darrin find Fergus on the patio talking to a frog that he keeps in his pocket. The frog is his girlfriend Phoebe. Samantha says she can’t turn Fergus back to a frog but she can make Phoebe human. They agree to that and so she does. Then Samantha hears the story of how Fergus was changed in the first place. He was a big shot among frogs and thought that he could be even more successful as a human and so he paid a witch to transform him. But he forgot about Phoebe and how he’d be alone without her. Samantha says if he bought a wish and brought all this on himself then she can reverse the spell. Fergus lets Phoebe decide and she says to turn them back, so she does. Samantha and Darrin release them both outside the house. 

            Fergus was played by John Fiedler, who studied at the Neighbourhood Playhouse. He started acting in theatre. He played Homer on The Aldrich Family radio series. He played Cadet Alfie Higgins on Tom Corbett: Space Cadet. He played juror number two in 12 Angry Men. He played Gordie “the Goul” Spangler on Kolchak the Night Stalker. He played the therapy patient Owen Peterson on The Bob Newhart Show. He co-starred in the film adaptation of The Odd Couple. He was hand picked by Walt Disney to be the voice of Piglet and he was in every animated Winnie the Pooh feature from 1968 to 2005. He played Hengist in “The Wolf in the Fold” episode of Star Trek.