Janee Michelle

            On Monday morning I finished working out the chords for all the verses and choruses of “D’où reviens-tu Billy Boy?” by Boris Vian. All that’s left to figure out is a bridge before the last verse. 

            I memorized the chorus of “Amours des feintes” (Feinting Romance) by Serge Gainsbourg. I almost nailed down the third verse but didn’t quite make it before the time ran out. 

            During song practice I played my Kramer electric guitar for the second of two sessions.

            I weighed 87.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I shaved and showered and so there was no time afterward to work on my bathroom sanding project. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos before lunch but didn’t like that weight so I tried it again and weighed 87.6 kilos. Then it was 88.35 and then 87.95. The last number repeated itself so maybe that’s my weight. If so it’s the heaviest I’ve been since August 4. 

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

            I weighed 87.6 kilos at 17:15. 

            A few weeks ago I sent Richard Olafson of Ekstasis Editions a few photos of me as he’d requested. But I’ve been thinking that I need to try out some self portraits with my new camera. I first had to figure out how to do it. I went out onto the deck with my tripod and took 105 photos with the ten second timer. Some of them aren’t bad. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:30. 

            In the Movie Maker project to make a video for the studio recording of my song “The Next State of Grace” I synchronized the concert video with the studio audio for the lyric “and my voice is so distant”. After that for the words, “it can hardly be heard” they go out of synch again so I added a clip from the recent video I shot on the street of myself performing the song and synchronized that with the audio. Then I worked on lining up the concert video with the audio for the last part of the line “by the women who pass in the rain”. The video was about a second behind when I quit for the night. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast beef while watching season 7, episodes 13 and 14 of Bewitched. 

            The first story was developed from a school project by a tenth grade class at Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles. In the story Lisa Wilson has a sleep over with Tabitha a few days before Christmas as her parents Keith and Dorothy are taking a business trip. Darrin is working on the layouts for the Brockway account. Brockway does not like to do business with people until he has seen how they live at home and so he plans a surprise visit to Darrin’s house. While Tabitha and Lisa are playing, Tabitha mentions magic and so Samantha calls her away to give her a lecture about revealing family secrets. That leaves Lisa alone downstairs when the doorbell rings and so she answers it. Because Lisa is black Mr. Brockway asks her if one of her parents is the housekeeper. She says her father works for McMann and Tate and so Brockway assumes that her father is Darrin. It pushes his assumption further when Lisa tells him that she and Tabitha are sisters, which she means in the sense that they are close friends. She asks if he wants to see somebody but says he’s seen enough and leaves. A few hours after this Darrin gets word that Brockway, having seen Darrin’s homelife, has determined that Darrin is not stable and so Brockway wants someone else on his account. Later when Tabitha and Lisa are in Tabitha’s room painting, Lisa spills paint all over her dress. Tabitha is not supposed to reveal that she is a witch because it’s a family secret but she figures that if Lisa closes her eyes she won’t see her do magic. Tabitha removes the paint but at the same time turns Lisa white (although the actor is obviously wearing white face and a blonde wig). Seeing Lisa is white, Tabitha reasons that they really are sisters now and so she is allowed to reveal the family secret that she is a witch. She changes Lisa back to her natural colour. Lisa asks if she can make herself look like her and so then we see the Tabitha actor Erin Murphy in blackface. Tabitha tries to make her and Lisa look the same without making them look different from normal and Tabitha ends up with black polka dots while Lisa has white ones. The problem is that now Tabitha can’t reverse the spell because her subconscious mind wants to be sisters with Lisa. Darrin suggests getting through to Tabitha’s subconscious with an old fashioned spanking. Then Larry shows up and says he doesn’t want to lose the Brockway account and so has invited Brockway to the Christmas office party and told him that the party is at Darrin’s house. A few hours later the party is underway when Keith and Dorothy return. Then Brockway arrives with presents for the children: a black doll for Lisa, a white doll for Tabitha and a black and white teddy bear for Adam because Brockway doesn’t know what colour he is. Dorothy happens to be standing nearby and Darrin is about to introduce her when Brockway thinks she’s Samantha. He says, “Someday what you are doing will be accepted I guess but by George it sure takes a lot of guts!” Upstairs Samantha is explaining to Tabitha how she and Lisa are sisters no matter how different they look and when Tabitha is truly convinced she is able to reverse her spell. Meanwhile Larry has just informed Brockway that Darrin is not in a mixed marriage and now Brockway wants Darrin back on his account. Larry tells Brockway that his company no longer wants his business. Brockway protests and declares, “Some of my best friends are negros”. Samantha and Darrin are listening and Darrin gives Samantha permission to use magic. She casts a spell to make Brockway see Larry, her, Darrin as black and himself in the mirror as black (so now we see four more actors in blackface). On Christmas morning the Wilson’s are celebrating Christmas with Samantha and Darrin and their family when Brockway shows up at their door. He admits that he found out last night that he’s a racist, but of such a sneaky kind that he didn’t even know it. Keith says, “to adequately define the problem is the first step towards solving it”. Samantha invites Brockway to stay for Christmas dinner. 

            The Grade 10 students who conceived the story were all African American and most could not read or write at a high school level. The episode won the Governors Award at the 1971 Emmy Awards. One of the children, Bob Randall did grow up to be a writer and producer. 

            Dorothy was played by Janee Michelle, who was still in high school when she started pursuing an acting career in Hollywood while at the same time commuting to Las Vegas to work as a dancer. She graduated at the top of her class. Her first TV role was in Mr. Novak. Her film debut was in The Legend of Jimmy Blue Eyes. She co-starred in The House on Skull Mountain and Soul Soldier. She later became a successful business owner in New Orleans. In 1977 she was the queen of the New Orleans Mardis Gras Zulu Parade. 

            In the second story Darrin has come up with a campaign for Bobbins Bon Bons in which secretaries are rewarded for liking their jobs with boxes of Bobbins Bon Bons. Suddenly Endora appears before Samantha and Darrin and she tells her daughter that it’s nice to be alone with her for a change. Samantha points out that Darrin is right there and Endora says that one dimensional objects tend to blend into the background. She says giving candy to secretaries is a horrible idea and suggests that there should be a mother in law’s day with candy for them. Samantha says there is no mother in law’s day (but the first mother in law’s day was observed in Texas in 1934. In the 1970s the American Society of Florists declared the last Sunday in October to be National Mother in Law’s Day in the US). Later Darrin meets with Bobbins and before he can pitch him his idea Bobbins mentions this horrible idea he heard about giving candy to secretaries. Then Endora casts a spell on Darrin to make him say that his idea is about mother in law’s day. Bobbins loves it. Darrin realizes he’s under a spell and rejects the idea. Later Bobbins comes to Darrin’s house and says he wants there to be a mother in law of the year award of a box of Bobbins Bon Bons. Then Endora casts a spell on him and he is charmed and spends the evening with Endora. It’s decided that Endora will be crowned Mother in Law of the Year on the Sweetheart Parade TV show sponsored by Bobbins. But despite the fact that she initiated this whole thing Endora refuses to do the TV show. So Samantha makes herself look like her and begins the commercial. But Endora resents being imitated and so she appears as Samantha next to her on camera. For everything nice Samantha says about the candy Endora says something against it. Then Endora changes to herself and Samantha changes to herself. Then Samantha talks about avoiding mother in law anger with a box of Bobbins candy. The commercial is a success.