I worked out the chords for the intro and the first three lines of “Dis-lui toi que je t'aime” (That I Love You Now Tell Him) by Serge Gainsbourg.
I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. I audio and video recorded the session as I have since September 1 and will until October 15. I spent a long time trying to get “Vomit of the Star Eater” right. My goal right now is to make it through the second chorus without a major mistake and to worry about the third verse later. I don’t know if I’ve gotten a good take of that song anytime during this project so far. I almost made it through “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on the first take, then redid it and made it through without any major mistakes.
I weighed 88.45 kilos before breakfast.
Around midday I hitched my bike trailer and rode to the supermarket. A guy walking by complimented me on my trailer and told me I was smart. The grapes at No Frills were $3.17 a kilo so I got six bags. I also bought two packs of raspberries, bananas, detergent, salsa, Manchurian flavour ramen, a jug of orange juice, and two containers of skyr. After going through the checkout I remembered to buy milk, so I left my trailer there and went to get three bags of skim.
I weighed 88.05 before lunch. I had a slice of multigrain bread with margarine, five-year-old cheddar and a glass of low sugar iced tea.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. When I got back there were three bikes blocking the door of Popeyes. I guess people could squeeze by but it’s an odd place to park.
Two nights ago the city finally replaced the bench on the corner in front of my place.
Several months ago one got wrecked by a truck and then it was replaced only to get ripped out by another truck. The corner is not a good place for a bench because of the big delivery trucks that back up and turn onto O’Hara to feed Popeyes.
I weighed 88.6 kilos at 17:41.
I was caught up on my journal at 18:53.
In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Me and Gravity” I continued to work on synchronizing the old concert video with the studio audio. The song in that 1994 video is played more slowly than I played it later when I took up the guitar. I had to make cuts from the video after “Whenever I lay bare my heart”; “it looks like the Grand Canyon Park”; “and women gasp at a desert hole”; and “that’s too deep to believe”. Then the video and audio stay lined up for “They walk around, they stop and stare, they leave their garbage everywhere, but no one wants to stick around…” But while I’m singing “It’s the kind of place you leave” the camera has moved away from me and it’s focused on Tom Smarda. Since I’m still singing it’s not appropriate to have the camera on Tom. And within the context of this project it makes even less sense to single out Tom, since he’s not even in the studio recording. So next I need to find an outside video clip to fill up the timeline until the camera is back on me in the concert.
I uploaded today’s song practice video and reviewed the first 40 minutes of the September 10 video. “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” that day wasn’t too bad.
I added three cups of water to the ground sirloin chili that I made on Thursday. I mixed in two hot garlic flavour packs and brought it to a boil, then I added the two ramen cakes. I had two bowls with a beer while watching episode 13 of The Big Valley.
A logging engineer named Matt Todman and his wife Cinda come to stay with the Barkleys and to negotiate a project that he says promises to turn a five times profit after a big investment. He wants to build a flume for sliding logs into the river. Heath comes in and is brought over to meet Toddman, whose back is turned. Heath extends his hand but as Toddman turns to shake it they both recognize each other in a moment of shock, which is broken when Heath drives his fist into Toddman’s face. Jerrod and Nick have to pull him off because he wants to kill him. Heath tells them Toddman’s real name is Bentell. He was the warden of Cardison prison during the Civil War. Up until this point it’s never been mentioned that Heath had ever been in the Civil War. Heath was a prisoner of war for seven months until the war ended. He tells of food with maggots, putrid water and floggings for complaining about them. Prisoners died of exposure and others died because medical help was refused. Heath was among 740 soldiers fighting in New Mexico and half ended up in Cardison but less than 100 survived the prison. Victoria asks if he could really kill him now. Heath leaves to do some work. Bentell and Cinda are leaving but the rest of the Barkleys ask him to stay. Bentell and Cinda discuss it and apparently this has happened many times but this is the first time they’ve been asked to stay, so they do. Nick decides to send Heath with Bentell to work on the project because if someone else from Cardison tries to kill him Heath would recognize them sooner and be able to stop them. Heath refuses but Victoria tells him he has to have the guts to conquer the hatred or it will conquer him. When Heath and the Bentells arrive at the work site Matt introduces himself and tells the men who he really is so that anyone who wants to quit can do so ahead of time. Some of them do. Jarrod is hiring men for the project and gets attacked by some of the men who quit. Two other men come to his defense who happen to be brothers named Aaron and Gil Condon. Jarrod hires them. Heath helps Bentell screen the men and Heath turns down anyone he recognizes from prison. Heath also turns down the Condon brothers but Bentell says they can work in the construction camp. Later Bentell is riding between sites and someone takes a shot at him. Later still he’s at the site of the flume and below one of the large supports on the hill. Gil sneaks off to cut the rope. Heath sees it falling and jumps Bentell to push him out of the way. Heath catches up with Gil and Aaron. They remind him of the 18 prisoners shot during the prison break. Cinda goes to think Heath for saving her husband’s life but he says he’s sorry he did it and she hits him. Then she offers her husband’s side of the story. She claims he was more of a prisoner than any of the prisoners, held by huis duty. She says he couldn’t give what little food there was to the prisoners when his own men were starving. She says the prisoners fought each other like animals over food, clothing, places to sleep and even places to die. She says part of Bentell died with the men he had killed. She tells Heath to save some of his anger for the prisoner who informed Bentell of the escape plan. Then Bentell walks in and says the informer was Aaron Condon. He informed on the condition that Gil receive medical help to save his leg. He says the Condons don’t want him dead for revenge but to keep him from exposing them. Meanwhile Gil is still obsessed and now his plan is to start a forest fire. All the workers are sent to try and put it out. But it’s in several places. Heath got one section under control but another needs the help of explosives to create a fire bridge to stop its advance. Heath and Bentell get the nitro and start planting it. Heath catches Gil stealing nitro from the wagon. He tries to make him put it back but Gil sucker punches Heath and knocks him out. Bentell stops Gil from taking the notro and then goes to help Heath. But Gil goes to where the nitro is planted and tries to dig it up. Bentell drags Heath away while Aaron tries to stop Gil. Then a burning tree falls on them both and sets off an explosion that kills the brothers. Later after the flume is built Heath seems hunky dory with Bentell.
Cinda was played by Martine Bartlett, who earned a Masters Degree in Drama at Yale. She was active in theatre work for many years and made her Broadway debut in The Devil’s Disciple in 1950. Her television debut was on an episode of Robert Montgomery Presents in 1956. Her film debut was in Splendour in the Grass in 1961. She was nominated for an Emmy for her performance in an episode of Arrest and Trial in 1963. She co-starred in I Never Promised You A Rose Garden. She was a lifetime member of the Actors Studio.
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