Bert Freed

            On Wednesday morning I memorized the tenth verse of “Allons z'enfants” (Join the Ranks Kids) by Boris Vian. There are four verses left to nail down. 

            I finished memorizing the third verse of “L'amour en soi” (Love in Essence) by Serge Gainsbourg. I searched for the chords and found a set on La bôite a chanson (Song Box) but it says the entire song is F minor and E flat all the way through, which I doubt. I’ll search some more tomorrow and then I’ll start working them out myself. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of two sessions. I audio and video recorded the session as I have since September 1 and as I will continue to do until October 15. It took several takes to get a good take of “Vomit of the Star Eater” but it only took a couple of takes to get a not bad version of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma”. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four day stretch of playing the electric guitar during song practice. It looks like it’ll be the Gibson because my Kramer has been in the shop since August 23. 

            I weighed 87.75 kilos before breakfast. 

            I weighed 88.9 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the early afternoon since September 22. I had Triscuits 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 88.1 kilos at 18:00. That’s the most I’ve tipped the scales in the evening since September 23. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:45. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Me and Gravity” I worked on synchronizing the old concert video with the studio audio for the fourth verse. The audio was always a little ahead of the video and so I had to cut bits of the video timeline every few words to keep lining them up. I made it into the fourth chorus and had the same problem. I synchronized the video and audio for the first two lines and I’ll continue tomorrow. 

            I uploaded today’s song practice videos. I reviewed another half hour of the September 12 video and finished for the night. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and made a fence in the middle of french fries and five-year-old cheddar with an egg in the centre. I had it with a beer while watching episode 24 of The Big Valley. 

            Jarrod is just riding out from the house when he encounters a man named Gil Anders who says he’s an old friend of Heath’s and he’s been looking for him for three years. Jarrod tells him to wait for Heath at the house and starts riding away when there is a gunshot and Gil is on the ground. Two deputies come riding up and one shows Jarrod a wanted for murder poster with Gil’s picture and a $500 reward. They say they are taking him to Coreyville to stand trial. Jarrod says they aren’t taking him anywhere in his condition but one of the men aims a rifle at him. Just then Nick rides up with his gun drawn. Jarrod tells them they’re trespassing and so they leave for now. Jarrod and Nick take Gil to the house and send for the doctor and for Heath. Dr. Merar says Gil needs a transfusion and Nick volunteers. According to Wikipedia early transfusions were risky and many resulted in the death of the patient. By the late 19th century, blood transfusion was regarded as a risky and dubious procedure, and was largely shunned by the medical establishment. There were however isolated reports of successful transfusions towards the end of the 19th century. This story is supposed to take place around 1880 and the doctor would have known nothing about blood types and so giving Gil someone else’s blood would have been a gamble. Heath is summoned but when he arrives and sees Gil Anders he tells everyone to let him die. Jarrod tries to talk with Heath but he says to send Gil back to Coreyville. Jarrod reminds Heath that Coreyville is run by Ben Colter the hanging judge. The deputies return with the sheriff but Jarrod tells them they need a search warrant and the judge in Stockton is away for the next two days. Heath explains his attitude towards Gil to the family. Heath, Gil and a teenager named Willie Martin were heading for Nevada across the desert to prospect for silver. They were attacked by Umas and lost all but one. They were down to one skin of water. Gil waited until they were asleep and ran off with the horse and the water. Willie died of thirst. Heath’s family still thinks Gil needs a trial. Heath is upset that no one is siding with him and so he leaves to stay in the hotel in Stockton. Jarrod heads for Coreyville to find out the truth before handing Gil over to deputies from there. Jarrod talks with the sheriff who says there were no witnesses to the murder of the schoolteacher Horus Ames but everybody knew Gil did it. At the hotel the clerk tells Jarrod they are full but Jarrod tells him he is risking fine or imprisonment because if he is denying someone a room when there is a vacancy he is in violation of California state law. Later Jarrod is playing poker with some locals and offers them $100 to tell him why Gil killed Horus. They quietly deal Jarrod out of the game but the bartender tells him to talk with Amy Colter. Jarrod goes to his room where Ben Colter’s nephew Matt is waiting for him with two men. Matt tells Jarrod to leave town and when he refuses he is beaten unconscious. Jarrod is trapped in his room with men waiting for him on the street. Matt’s wife Amy comes to him, helps him get away and shelters him in the schoolhouse. Meanwhile the Barkley family has not received the promised telegram from Jarrod and so Nick decides to go to Coreyville. On the way he stops in Stockton and convinces Heath to come along. The next morning Amy tells Jarrod that Horus Ames was killed because of her. She was spending innocent time with him discussing books but one night when she returned a book to him Matt jealously attacked and killed Horus. He threatened to kill Amy as well. Jarrod says he will write out what she just said and she agrees to sign it. Jarrod is headed for the stage when two men grab him and are about to throw him under it. But Nick and Heath stop them. Matt fires at the brothers then they all draw at the same time and kill him. Judge Colter says he wants them thrown in jail but the sheriff finally stands up to him and refuses. Amy steps up as a witness and says they were defending themselves. Heath returns home and goes to hear Gil tell him that he’s been searching for three years to tell him that he was scared in the desert and did a horrible thing. The guilt has been gnawing at him all this time. He just wants Heath to believe that he would give his life to do it over. Heath believes him.

            Judge Colter was played by Bert Freed, who began acting in university and made his Broadway debut in 1942. His film debut was in Carnegie Hall in 1947. He played Rufe Ryker on the TV series Shane. He was the first actor to play Columbo and that was on the Chevy Mystery Show in 1960. He directed one episode of T.H.E. Cat. He died while on a fishing trip in Canada in 1991.