Joan Leslie

            On Saturday morning I memorized the first two verses of “La vague à lames” (The Bladed Wave) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are basically three verses left to learn and then some repetitions and so I’ll probably have the whole song in my head on Sunday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of four sessions. I audio and video recorded the session for the 42nd session of 45. It was a pretty good rehearsal and I made it to “The Blood Flow Tango” before the memory card was full only for the second time since I started this year’s project. I did a pretty good take of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” but I think one of the chords near the end was wrong. 

            I weighed 86.75 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the early afternoon I went to No Frills where all the grapes were too soft so I got two bags of oranges instead. I also bought three packs of raspberries, bananas, a sirloin tip roast, a pack of chicken drumsticks, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, four artisan naan, mouthwash, toothpaste, a jug of low sugar iced tea, a bag of Miss Vickie’s plain chips and another of the sweet chili kind. For the first time in months they had the PC brand of skyr, which is so much better than the Siggis brand and so I got two containers. When I got home I went back out to buy a six-pack of Creemore. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos at 15:00. For lunch I had a bowl of cheese sticks and a glass of low sugar iced tea. 

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

            I weighed 87.35 kilos at 18:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since September 29. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:00. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Me and Gravity” I edited out the part of the concert video that happens after I drop to the stage in the finale of the song. I added a fade to black at the end and then I published the movie. I wanted to make a thumbnail of Charlie Chaplin on a tightrope to use when I upload the video to YouTube but the screenshots of him in my video would not be very good so I downloaded an image of the scene. Also before uploading the video to YouTube I wanted to make sure I had my information right about the concert video. I went through my diary from thirty years ago and found that we did the concert at the El Mocambo on November 27, 1994 at a weekly event called Sedated Sundays. Tomorrow I’ll upload the video to YouTube. 

            I uploaded today’s song practice videos and I’ll convert the big file from MP4 to AVI overnight. Although there are only three days left in this year’s recording project I don’t think I have room on my hard drive for them all and so I’ll probably need to move some of the files over to my external hard drive.

            I finished reviewing part A of the song practice video from September 13 and I kept telling myself to tune that fucking electric guitar. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, Black Forest ham, five-year-old cheddar and an egg. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 5 and 6 of Branded. 

            In the first story McCord rides into a town and goes to a bar for a drink. Somehow someone who recognizes him just happens to have a brush and some yellow pain to mark a streak down his back. McCord hits him and then a few more join in. A stranger walks in and helps him. His name is Johnny Dolen and they have a drink. Later Johnny comes to McCord’s hotel room and pulls a gun on him. He takes him out on the trail and they make camp. Johhny says he plans to kill him for the reward. Since McCord has committed no crime there could not be a public reward but he learns there is a private one of $5000. But there are others after that reward and they attack McCord and Johnny. They fight them off but Johnny is mortally wounded. Before he dies he shows McCord the name of the detective agency that is offering the reward. McCord disguises himself with an eyepatch and without shaving and goes to the Paxton Detective Agency in Hyattville. He claims to have killed Jason McCord and wants the reward. Paxton sends a telegram to the anonymous person who put up the reward. McCord gives the location where he claims he’s buried. When the man arrives he’s masked with a scarf. McCord reveals himself and unmasks him. It turns out he is Thomas Frye who was a civilian scout for the cavalry. General Reed sent him out the day before the Bitter Creek massacre and he never reported back. The Apache gave him $30,000 in gold in exchange for telling him how many men were in Reed’s patrol. Paxton knocks McCord out and when he comes to he is made to dig his own grave. But the grave is deeper than needed for one man and McCord tells Paxton it means Frye is going to kill him too. McCord shovels dirt in Frye’s face just before he shoots Paxton and so he only wounds him in the shoulder. They fight and Frye runs but gets caught in quicksand. McCord tries to save him but can’t by hand. There were plenty of trees around so it’s strange he wouldn’t just use a tree branch for him to grab onto. 

            In the second story McCord is in Kansas and walks his horse up to a woman named Emily Cooper who is mourning at her husband’s grave. He tells her is horse threw a shoe and he needs a lift to Abilene. She says she’d be happy to take him. But before they can leave some men ride up. They are a local rancher named Renger and his men. His man Karp takes McCord’s knife from his saddle bag and McCord has to make him put it back. Emily has the land with the most water and has told Renger she will share it with him freely but he insists on buying her out. Renger leaves and McCord and Emily continue on. He learns she is a Quaker and has arranged for six more Quaker families to settle on her land and form a community. She is trying to maintain the farm until they get there but whenever she hires a hand he gets frightened off by Renger and his men. McCord has a job waiting for him in Kansas City but he offers to stay and help her out for a while. They are in town getting supplies when Karp picks another fight with McCord and is beaten again. Renger tries to court Emily so they can get married and merge their properties. She reminds him of the six families coming but he wants to buy them out. Renger is a rancher and resents the land being used for farming. Since McCord spent the night on Emily’s couch Renger thinks something more is going on and he attacks him. Renger only has one arm and so McCord beats him with one arm. That night some of Renger’s men independently attack McCord. Renger comes and helps McCord stop them. The first of the Quaker families arrive and so now that Emily has help McCord says goodbye. 

            Emily was played by Joan Leslie, who started out singing, dancing, playing accordion, piano, and acting in a Vaudeville act called the Brodel Sisters with her two siblings at the age of two and a half. At the age of nine she was able to convince child labour officers that she was sixteen. They performed on the radio and in nightclubs with Joan showing a particular talent for doing impressions and for crying on cue. Her first credited film role was in Camille. At 14 she co-starred in High Sierra. She became a movie star as the girl next door. She co-starred in Sergeant York, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Rhapsody in Blue, Royal Flush, The revolt of Mamie Stover, Man in the Saddle, Two Thoroughbreds, The Male Animal, The Hard Way, The Sky’s the Limit, This is the Army, Repeat Performance, and The Skipper Surprised His Wife. She starred in Cinderella Jones, Northwest Stampede, and Flight Nurse. She became a clothing designer and also founded the Dr. William G. and Joan L. Caldwell Chair in Gynecologic Oncology for the University of Louisville.