Byron Morrow

            On Saturday morning I finished working out the chords for “S'il pleauvait des larmes” (If Our Tears Made the Rain Come) by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it in French.

            I memorized the third and most of the fourth verse of “Asphalte” by Serge Gainsbourg. That’s about half the song. 

            During song practice I played my Martin acoustic guitar for the first of two sessions. 

            I weighed 88.6 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since June 27.

            Around midday I hitched up my bike trailer and headed down to No Frills. I did a price match on the red grapes at Freshco’s price. But I only got five bags because they weren’t all in great shape. I also bought two bags of cherries, two packs of raspberries, bananas, a big bag of potatoes, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, dental floss, a jug of orange juice, a jug of low sugar iced tea, two containers of skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. The trailer flipped over as I was leading it off the sidewalk at an angle. Good thing I was only walking the bike at the time. I’ll have to be careful now that I know it can flip.

            I had pita crackers for lunch with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of low sugar iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I weighed 87.1 kilos at 17:00. 

            I got an email from Richard Olafson saying he’s interested in publishing my book of poems, Paranoiac Utopia. He likes the poems and he’s also influenced by the recommendation of Albert Moritz. Richard asked if he could send me a contract. It looks like I’m finally going to be published after all these years. 

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

            I went out with my tripod and camera to see if I could find anyone to put on video for my project. I walked to Sorauren three times but no one grabbed me this time. It was a much slower Saturday than last week. 

            I emailed Richard Olafson and told him to go ahead and send me a contract for publishing my book. I also asked if he would consider using the artwork that I created for the cover. I sent him the images to see what he thinks. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my acoustic performance of “The Wooden Leg” I set the beginning and end and deleted everything before and after. I added a fade to black at the end and a sepia tone effect. Tomorrow I’ll probably upload it to YouTube. 

            I made pizza on roti with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the last two episodes of season 4 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Darrin has been selected as one of the advertizing men of the year. Endora wants to prove to Samantha that Darrin can’t handle adulation without it going to his head. She casts a spell that causes anyone who comes in close proximity to him to consider whatever he says as the greatest thing in the world. Several clients are so impressed with Darrin because of the spell that they want to hear ideas off the top of his head which they love also because of the spell. But Darrin gets his best ideas after thinking hard about them, however it’s not his best ideas that are being praised. Darrin is asked to come and meet Mr. McMann on his yacht. This is the first time in the series that we have ever seen McMann of McMann and Tate. McMann tells Darrin that he’s the crown prince of McMann and Tate. Darrin is thinking that things are going so well that maybe one day he’ll be president of the United States. Samantha begins to suspect that her mother is involved in this. At the party for the man of the year Samantha witnesses Darrin getting more and more unnatural praise and his ego getting bigger and bigger. Endora has been babysitting and when they get home Samantha confronts her about the spell she knows she put on Darrin. When she admits it Samantha gets her to remove it. Then Samantha sends Darrin into his study to come up with good ideas to replace the charmed bad ones. But the next day the problem is that the clients are still under the spell that makes them prefer the bad ideas. Darrin calls Samantha and asks her to temporarily put the spell back on him so the good ideas will be accepted. Then when he comes home he is fine with her removing it. 

            One of the clients was played by Byron Morrow, who started as a semi-pro basketball player. He entered the entertainment industry as a model, a radio announcer, and a puppeteer. His first film appearance was in Luke and the Tenderfoot in 1955. He guest starred as Admiral Komack on Star Trek and was the first admiral to appear in the series. 

            In the second story Gladys Kravitz has left Abner. Samantha sees her in the middle of the night in front of her house hitchhiking in curlers and a housecoat and with two suitcases. Samantha invites her to spend the night at their place. She wants the couple to stay together and so the next day she does not push Gladys to leave. In gratitude for their hospitality Gladys cooks Samantha and Darrin dinner consisting of alfalfa soup, organic vegetable loaf, and kumquat pudding. It seems that Gladys is a vegetarian and her forcing that diet onto Abner was one of the points of conflict. Meanwhile Abner is so happy that he dances while mowing the lawn and has poker games with his friends in the living room. Darrin can’t take anymore of Gladys living with them and gives Samantha permission to use witchcraft to resolve the problem. Samantha compels the bald, bespectacled butcher Mr. Hogersdorf, who Gladys thinks looks like Henry Fonda, to come over and court Gladys. At the same time she casts a spell on Abner to make him come over to be made jealous by the attempted courtship. Abner says he is jealous but he’ll get over it. He and Gladys compare the sacrifices they’ve made. Samantha gets Gladys to admit that her motive is still love. Then Abner tells Hogersdorf to leave and he and Gladys are back together.