October 19, 1994: As a host Danny Marks was a putz

October 19, 1994 

            On Wednesday I posed at the Ontario College of Art from 9:00 to 16:00. I was going to check out the poetry slam but found out that it wasn’t any kind of contest and so I didn’t go. I went up to the Bloor Street United Church for the Fat Albert’s open stage in the basement. Tom Smarda, Steve Lowe and I performed my songs “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” and “The Next State of Grace”: 

The Next State of Grace 

I’m sitting here cooking in the stew of the street

I’m the part that won’t ever get stirred 

but as I am boiling I drink my own broth 

and bend noodles to the shape of these words 

Oh when oh when will I ever learn? 

I can’t find my heaven with wheels that don’t turn 

I’ve got no ambition and that’s a disgrace 

Guess I’ll sit here and wait for the next state of grace 

I’m dug down so deep in the trench of my heart 

I can’t seem to climb back out again 

and my voice is so distant it can hardly be heard 

by the women who pass in the rain 

Oh when oh when will I ever learn? 

I can’t drive a girl home with wheels that don’t turn 

from the ditch of my pride where I try to save face 

Guess I’ll sit here and wait for the next state of grace 

So my mind hangs above this emotional wreck 

like a scavenger looking for parts 

and it lives in a mansion that’s built from the sweat 

of my tarpaper shack dwelling heart 

Oh when oh when will I ever learn? 

I’ll freeze here on Earth with a heart that won’t burn 

So I’m biding my time here as fate’s welfare case 

while I line up and wait for the next state of grace 

            Then Tom and I went up to the Black Rooster open stage on Bathurst south of Dupont and did four songs each. Mary Milne came with Sarah and read some poems, then Tom and I went down to Bloor and Brunswick for the open stage at Albert’s Hall where Steve had gone right after Fat Albert’s. It was bogus because it was hosted by Danny Marks who was a putz. He deliberately screwed up Mike Weedman’s name when he introduced him so I shouted out, “You’re an asshole!”

Carol Eve Rossen

            On Thursday morning I searched for the chords for “La vague à lames” (The Bladed Wave) by Serge Gainsbourg but no one had posted them. I worked them out for the first verse. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice and it sounded horrible. The G string was buzzing and at first I thought the string had just gone dead, but later I noticed the D was buzzing a bit too and then the B and so I think the action has dropped since the heat came on. I planned on getting some sanding done today in the bathroom but I think I need to take the Martin back to the Twelfth Fret to get Brian to raise the action.

            I weighed 86.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            At around midday I packed up my Martin and made the long bike ride to The Twelfth Fret at Woodbine and Danforth, stopping to pee as usual at The Second Cup in Greektown. At the Twelfth Fret Brian was amazed at how much the action had dropped. He remembered that last spring it had been too high and he’d needed to shave off some of the saddle. Now he had to glue a piece onto the saddle to raise it up again. He said he didn’t know what normal was but the fluctuations in the action of my guitar are certainly unusual. He said if it was high in the spring and low now then it will probably shift again. I told him I plan to buy a humidifier and he agreed that I need one. He said apartments above storefronts tend to get very dry in the winter. Martin Road Series guitars are all made in Mexico. Brian’s colleague put forward a theory that if the wood was cured in Mexico it might fluctuate more in Canada. Brian suggested that maybe mahogany dries more quickly. 

            I was exhausted riding home, especially since I only had a couple of hours sleep. I would normally stop at Freshco on a Thursday but decided I couldn’t handle it. I’ll go on Friday. 

            I weighed 84.65 kilos at 15:30 when I got home. 

            I took a late siesta and slept until about 18:30. 

            I weighed 84.65 kilos at 18:50. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a warmed up T-bone steak while watching the last two episodes of season 1 of Branded. 

            In the first story McCord is escorting Dr. Evelyn Cole across the desert to work at a frontier hospital run by Dr. Michell, who she knew in Boston. But they find Mitchell dead in the desert after his carriage was attacked by Apache. They find his driver, a wounded cavalry officer, still alive and take him with them. Meanwhile at a ruined stagecoach station that was also attacked, two prospectors arrive and run for the well. But a man named Luke says he’s been waiting for two days for someone to try the water so he would know if the Apache poisoned it. That doesn’t sound like something the Apache would do. Anyway the prospectors are afraid to drink the water now. McCord and Cole arrive and they are told the same. They are attacked by Apache and both prospectors are killed. McCord fights them off. Then he sees Luke freely drinking the water and preparing to leave with the gold from the prospectors’ saddle bags. Luke says he saw the men steal the gold in Cascabel and so he waited for them at the well and convinced them the water was poisoned so he could get the gold. McCord takes the gold back to Cascabel and says he’s going to put Dr. Cole on a train to Boston. Why would he assume she wants to go back to Boston when she’s come all that way to work in a hospital? 

            Dr. Cole was played by Carol Eve Rossen, whose Broadway debut was in Nobody Loves an Albatross. She played supporting roles in several movies and TV series. She was married for 17 years to Hal Holbrook. In 1984 she was attacked by someone with a sledge hammer while jogging in a national park. She survived by playing dead. She later wrote a book about the experience called Counterpunch. She also wrote Mother Goose Drank Scotch, a biography of her father director Robert Rossen who was a victim of the Hollywood blacklist. 

            In the season finale, McCord has worked a cattle drive to a town where a businessperson named Lucy Benson has offered him a job as an engineer. She wants him to build her ranch, which is already one of the fastest growing enterprises in the territory. He accepts the job but when he goes to his horse he sees the saddle has been tampered with and his sabre removed. Then he is hit from behind and beaten up. The leader Caruthers knows he is the disgraced Captain McCord and tells him to leave town. Later he has started working for Benson and he is transporting the ranch payroll when he is ambushed again by Caruthers and his men. They take the money and his horse. McCord walks back to Benson’s ranch carrying his saddle. He gets a horse and goes after his, which he finds tied to a tree but the money is gone. He goes into Benson’s house and notices an outline on the wall where a cavalry sword used to be. She says Caruthers and his men were just there saying they would kill him if they saw him again. McCord goes to the bank and asks the banker if Benson always has such a big payroll taken to the ranch. He says that’s the biggest since her husband Mr. Hacket died. McCord confronts Benson about her husband’s death and she says he was shot for desertion. McCord accuses her of hiring Caruthers to harass him to see if a man can really stand up under pressure so she can determine if her husband really was a coward. McCord sees Caruthers on the street and goes out for a show down. Meanwhile McCord’s friend Roy holds a gun on Caruthers’s men. McCord is about to draw when Benson says to stop. She tells Caruthers it’s all over. McCord tells Benson she should forgive her husband and start calling herself Mrs. Hacket again. That’s fucked up but she thinks it’s a great idea. Caruthers gives him back his sabre and says no hard feelings. McCord agrees and then punches him. Caruthers is okay with that. What a weak show.

October 18, 1994: At my open stage I had a clash with the new guy

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday morning I posed in the sculpture studio of Central Technical School. Then I had a rehearsal for Christian and the Lions’ upcoming gig at the El Mocambo with Tom Smarda, Steve Lowe and Yehudah Cullman. It mostly consisted of us teaching my song “Angeline” to Yehudah. Then I worked at Danforth Technical School until 21:30 and so I was late again to host my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel. When I got there I found that we were missing chairs and tables. My co-host Mary Milne took offense when I said, “Everything falls apart when I’m not here”. There was a full moon and the energy was very tense. I had a clash with a new guy named Dan Goorevitch over the door being open or not. After everybody left, Adina and I stayed in the Art Bar and talked.

Marie Windsor

            On Wednesday morning I finished memorizing “La vague à lames” (The Bladed Wave) by Serge Gainsbourg but it took me an extra fifteen minutes of straining my brain. Tomorrow I’ll look for the chords. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice and it was the first time I’d performed without recording the session in audio and video in a month and a half. It was very relaxing to not worry about getting a perfect take and less time consuming to be free of all the extra cables. I had fun. 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos before breakfast. Since I changed the batteries in my scale it’s registered lower weight for me. But it still shows the proper weight for my 4.5 kilos dumbbell so it either showed my weight too high before or else I’ve lost weight, but I don’t feel like I have. 

            I had a little time to return to my bathroom project and sanded a bit more of the door frame. 

            I weighed 84 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. These days most of the bikes downtown are electric and being driven by people talking in South Asian languages. Most of them work in long sleeves and pants even in the summer heat and I even saw one wearing a winter coat. They gather and discuss their trade often just south of Bloor on Yonge and west of Spadina on Queen. They will often block other cyclists behind them after a light has turned green while they take the time to study their GPS. The Karaoke Preacher was back at the preachers’ corner of Yonge and Dundas. He has a shitty sound system for his voice as he sings along to the music of classic rock songs but with his Christianized lyrics that are obsessed with the Devil. He usually sounds pretty bad with a voice ravaged by a past of smoke and cheap booze but today he was singing to a basic blues melody which makes toneless voices irrelevant so he didn’t sound half bad. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos at 18:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since March 22. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:08. 

            I opened in Paint the first of the rainbow images I saved a couple of days ago. I made the range of the image taller and wider, then I copied the rainbow, flipped it, then lined up the left end of the flipped rainbow so the reversed rainbow looks like it’s flowing out of the other one. I did this again connecting the first image with the second to end up with a rainbow wave. Then I cut and pasted pieces of the blue sky around it and opened the whole thing in Photos because Paint will only rotate images in 90 degree turns whereas in Photos one can pick any angle one wants. The rainbow wave that I made in Paint travelled upward at about a forty degree angle but I needed it to be horizontal. I was able to level it off in Photos but one always loses some of the image when one does that. However I ended up with a wave image that I can turn into more waves. Once I cut them into parts and paste those onto the video timeline of my “Seven Shades of Blues” Movie Maker project, I should end up with an animated Rainbow wave for the song intro. 

            I reviewed the song practice video of “Comme un Boomerang” from September 1 of this year. I deleted part A because there as no full version of the song there. I played the Gibson, made a lot of mistakes and didn’t try to start over. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a cut up slice of Black Forest ham and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 13 and 14 of Branded. 

            In the first story McCord arrives in Canaan only to see that it’s a ghost town. Then he hears the church bell ring and goes inside. There he finds Joshua Murdock ranting like a madman and giving a sermon to an empty room. He greets McCord by name because Murdock is the one who contacted McCord about an engineering job in Canaan to lay the infrastructure of a city. McCord tries to reason with him that the town is dead but Murdock begins to rant again. McCord starts to leave but Murdock’s sons Micah and Malachi are armed and guarding the exit. Murdoch tells McCord he will be in Canaan for the rest of his life. McCord begins to fight his way out but the brothers overwhelm him and he is knocked out. When he wakes up he finds Murdock and his sons in the empty saloon. Murdock reveals that his son Obadiah died in the Bitter Creek massacre under McCord’s command. Almost every story refers to a person who died at Bitter Creek but it was made clear early on that there were only 31 people in the company. They’ll probably reference more than that before the series is over. Murdock says that tomorrow at daybreak they will re-enact the battle of Bitter Creek. Murdock takes McCord to the jail to show that he has imprisoned Grey Eagle, one of the Apache chiefs who signed the treaty with General Reed. Murdoch has captured Grey Eagle to hold as a guarantee that his sons Red Arm and Blue Hawk will do their best to kill him in the re-enactment. Micah and Malachi will make sure they don’t join forces. The next day Blue Hawk sneaks up on McCord but doesn’t want to kill him. They make a plan to free Grey Eagle but Malachi shoots Blue Hawk in the back for cheating. McCord goes to the jail and knocks out Micah. He retrieves his gun and frees Grey Eagle, then he kills Malachi. McCord saddles his horse while Murdock rants. Micah is about to shoot McCord when Red Arm kills him, causing Micah’s shot to go wild and kill Murdock. McCord asks Red Arm if he knows how he got away at Bitter Creek but he doesn’t. 

            In the second story McCord is trying to solve the mystery of how to drain the water from a silver mine so the company can mine it but it keeps re-flooding. Meanwhile at West Point Cadet Richard Bain is in trouble because he has written a thesis that declares that Jason McCord was not a coward at Bitter Creek. He is given thirty days sabbatical to reconsider his position and apologize. If he doesn’t he will be court martialed and kicked out of school. He travels to the mine where McCord is employed and asks the owner Carrie Milligan for a job as an assistant engineer. Both McCord and Carrie agree to hire him. Richard suggests that the river is draining into an old shaft next to the one they are trying to mine. Richard agrees to be dangled into the mine to find out for sure as long as McCord holds the rope. But Richard disappears inside and the rope returns cut. McCord swims in after him and discovers that Richard deliberately cut it to test McCord to prove his thesis that he’s not a coward. McCord is very angry but they find the break, blow it up and drain the mine, thus finding a large vein of silver. Richard is about to leave but begs to know what happened at Bitter Creek. McCord tells him the whole story about General Reed’s dementia and how he can’t reveal it officially without endangering the Apache treaties that Reed negotiated when he was competent. Richard agrees to return to West Point and to lie that he was wrong and to tell his teachers that McCord really was a coward. 

            Carrie was played by film noire star, Marie Windsor, who trained for the stage under Maria Ouspenskaya. She started out writing jokes and sending them to Jack Benny. When he met her he was stunned by her beauty and immediately got her signed with Warner Brothers. She became so notorious as a “bad woman” in her film roles that people used to mail her Bibles to help save her soul. She was known as Queen of the Bs because of all the B movies she starred in. She said a femme fatale gets the hero into bed and then into trouble. She said people tend to forget nice girls so she’d rather play a bad woman. She co-starred in Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 noire “The Killing”. She co-starred in The Narrow Margin, Hellfire, Force of Evil, The Sniper, City That Never Sleeps, Cat Women of the Moon, and The Bounty Hunter. She was so tall she had to bend her knees while standing beside many of her leading men. She was director of the Screen Actors Guild for 25 years. When she retired from film acting she became a painter and sculptor but continued to work on stage. I suspect that the character of Mia Wallace as played by Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction was based on the appearance of some of Marie Windsor’s femme fatale characters.

October 17, 1994: Adina and I went to hear Alex Anthony at the Hard Rock

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I posed at the Ontario College of Art from 16:00 to 22:00 and then went over to the Hard Rock Café where Adina was waiting. We got a table and listened to Alex Anthony. When he took a break we had a discussion about some guy who tried to buy her a drink. I introduced myself and Adina to Alex and told him about my upcoming gig at the El Mocambo.

Kathryn Hays

            On Tuesday morning I memorized the thirteenth verse of “Allons z'enfants” (Join the Ranks Kids) by Boris Vian. There is one verse left to learn. 

            I memorized the fourth verse of “La vague à lames” (The Bladed Wave) by Serge Gainsbourg. There’s one verse left to nail down plus some repetitions and I should have that done on Wednesday. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice and audio and video recorded the session for the last time of this year’s 45 day project. I’m glad it’s over and I can get that extra hour back. I can also return to sanding my bathroom. Tonight I’ll start reviewing all the songs I recorded to hear if any turned out well enough to upload to YouTube. I spent more time today doing retakes of “Vomit of the Star Eater” than I have throughout the entire project because I wanted to get a good version on this last day. I redid “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” a few times and I think I ended up with an okay take. 

            I weighed 84.95 kilos before breakfast. That’s the lightest I’ve been in the morning in a long time. 

            I weighed 85.75 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. I had planned on just using the Freshco washroom and then walking over to Metro to buy grapes. But the red grapes at Freshco were in pretty good shape so I got five bags and did a price match with the Metro Price at $5.38 a kilo. When Priscilla looked at the flyer on my phone she caused the image to go away and so she looked it up on her much faster phone. 

            I weighed 85.35 kilos at 18:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 20:07. 

            I searched for videos of rainbows but there isn’t much. I think I’m better off turning still images into a video for the opening of my “Seven Shades of Blues” project. 

            I grilled two T-bone steaks and had one with a small potato and gravy while watching season 1, episodes 11 and 12 of Branded. 

            The first story starts with a flashback to the Civil War. Jason McCord takes shelter in a bomb crater where he is attacked by a Confederate soldier. They fight and McCord kills him. The dying man forgives him and gives him a pocket watch to give back to his father if he has the chance, but he dies before he can tell him his name. It’s McCord’s first kill and it haunts him but he hangs onto the watch in case he can ever find the family of the man he killed. Years later McCord goes to a saloon for a beer. A poker game is going on and the inebriated Adam Manning has just lost to a man named Rand, but Adam is short $20. Rand demands the money but Adam doesn’t have it. Rand shoves him in anger and he falls against McCord who catches him and turns him around to see a man who is identical to the man he killed. He takes him home where he meets his father Sam Manning. He learns that the man he killed was Tad Manning and Sam has made him into a giant in his memory. He is constantly comparing Adam to Tad and often tells him what a disappointment he is. Rand comes for his money but Adam still doesn’t have it. Rand says he’ll get it from Sam but Adam tries to stop him and they fight but Rand wins and he’s about to beat Adam more when McCord stops him, easily beats him, and then gives him the $20 that Adam owes. Later McCord is about to leave and tells Sam that he killed his son then gives him the watch. Sam is angry and encourages Adam to do something about it. Adam confronts McCord with a rifle but McCord easily takes it away from him. He hands him the knife he made from the sword he used to kill Tad and tells him to use it if he can live with it. Adam can’t do it and walks away. Sam says he was wrong, thanks McCord for giving him back his son and then goes to Adam. 

            In the second story, Christina Adams hates Jason McCord because she blames him for her brother’s death at Bitter Creek. McCord was Clark Adams’s commanding officer and Clark was killed in the massacre. Before the war Clark and Christina inherited the ranch and Clark tried to manage it but it wasn’t in his blood. There were financial pitfalls and so Clark took out a loan from the bank, putting up the ranch as collateral. He also took out an insurance policy on the loan so that if he died the debt would be canceled. But the banker now contends that Clark joined the army so he would be killed and the loan canceled to protect Christina. If the bank can prove that Clark had a death wish then the bank can take the ranch. That’s why despite her hatred of McCord she needs him as a character witness in court. Her lawyer tracks McCord down and he agrees to testify. The court learns from a witness that Clark always requested transfer to companies that were under fire. When McCord takes the stand the courtroom is in shock to hear his name. He says that at first Clark was reckless but then he realized that his recklessness was putting his comrades in danger and so he changed his ways. He says Clark was one of the last men standing and protecting a wounded man. He says he was that wounded man. That conflicts with McCord’s earlier account that he was knocked unconscious and missed the battle altogether. McCord later tells Christina that before he died Clark was writing a letter to her talking about his hopes for the future which would be evidence that he did not want to die. She says she never got it but McCord suggests it was unfinished and never sent. He tells her to check his effects that were sent to her after he died and to look inside his cap, which was often where soldiers kept their letters. She goes to look and while she is doing so a group of men, including the banker, come to tar and feather McCord. He fights off several men but is about to be overwhelmed when Christina fires a shotgun. Then she reads the men the letter she found, which proves that Adam wanted to live and also that Jason McCord inspired that change of attitude. McCord and Christina are friends at the end. 

            Christina was played by Kathryn Hays, who started as a model but quickly moved to acting on stage. Her TV debut was in Hawaiian Eye and her film debut was in Ladybug Ladybug. She co-starred in the TV series The Road West. She played the Minaran empath Gem on the Star Trek episode “Empath”. She co-starred in the film Counterpoint. She spent 38 years playing the matriarch Kim Sullivan Hughes on As the World Turns until the final episode. She was married for three years to Hollywood legend Glenn Ford. After dinner I looked in the mirror and saw that my gnawing the T-bone had caused my front filling to wear away in the corner. It’s a happy coincidence that it happened after I shot the last video of my project. My book launch is supposedly at the end of November so I don’t want to get the filling fixed too soon before then and run the risk of it breaking again before the event. I’ll wait until about a month from now.

October 16, 1994: My daughter was with me and Adina came over

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday I had my daughter with me and Adina came over as well. This might have been the day I carved the pumpkin and not last Thursday.

Wendell Corey

            On Thanksgiving Monday morning I wasn’t quite able to memorize the fourth verse of “La vague à lames” (The Bladed Wave) by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I should have it nailed down and maybe even the rest of the song. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the last of four sessions. I audio and video recorded the session for the 44th of 45 days. I went through “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” and it wasn’t bad but I decided that since this was my last day of recording with the acoustic guitar I’d go through it again. Both times a motorcycle went by but I think the second time was better than the first. It was relatively quiet outside because of the holiday early on but then at 10:00 a guy with a very loud power washer started cleaning the building of the Elaine Fleck Gallery and the Capital Espresso. He was still doing it two hours later. It probably ruined anything I recorded after he started. I was pretty sure it was against the law to make that kind of noise on a holiday. But when I looked it up on the city website it looks like what he’s doing is okay since it’s after 9:00. 

            I weighed 87.85 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since last Monday, though not as heavy. 

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

            I weighed 86.10 kilos at 18:25. That’s the lightest I’ve been in the evening since August 22. 

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

            I started a Movie Maker project for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues”. This is the only one of my songs recorded by Christian and the Lions that has no concert video to use as the infrastructure of the music video. So I have to create a video that does not have me in it. I copied the song to the audio timeline and then I closed Movie Maker. I have no overall plan but I have an idea of how to begin. I spent about half an hour collecting images of rainbows and I got twenty two. Tomorrow I’ll see what kind of rainbow videos I can find. I might manipulate some of images to create a rainbow wave form and animate it for the intro. 

            I uploaded today’s song practice videos and I’ll convert the big one to AVI overnight. Tomorrow I’ll record the last video for this year’s project. Tomorrow night I’ll start reviewing all 45 sessions song by song to find out which song recordings are good enough to upload to YouTube. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last chicken leg with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 9 and 10 of Branded. 

            These stories are parts two and three of a three part story. 

            US President Ulysses S. Grant needs McCord for an undercover operation because although McCord doesn’t hate the army he has reasons to that will help him to pose convincingly as a traitor. Outposts, border stations and civilian properties are being raided from across the Mexican border by a Mexican gang. The army can’t pursue them across the border without violating the US treaty with Mexico. The plan is for McCord to infiltrate them and convince them to hit the payroll at Fort Perry. McCord arrives in a small town in Mexico near the border and goes into a cantina where two men pick a fight with him. After beating them McCord says he wants to talk with their head man. Why would he assume that these ruffians are members of the gang he wants to infiltrate? Chances are if they are part of a criminal organization they wouldn’t behave so chaotically. Someone knocks McCord out from behind and when he wakes up he is in the presence of someone higher up in the gang named Emil Brissac. He tells Brissac he’s familiar with US army garrisons and he knows the pattern their gang is using for their raids. He predicts correctly that their next target will be Fort Ryder. He says he can tell them which fort to hit that will net them the greatest profit but he needs a long term contract with their real head man. The next day McCord meets General Arriola (played by Cesar Romero) and advises him to do the unexpected by raiding Fort Perry. There is a large shipment of silver being held there for one day. If Arriola’s men disguise themselves as US cavalry they can enter the fort without firing a shot. The general agrees to the deal. McCord trains half the gang to behave as cavalry soldiers. The other half will chase the disguised gang members into the fort and then will retreat luring the soldiers from the fort away as they give chase. That will free up McCord and the disguised bandits to steal the silver. The night before they leave, Crispo, the man McCord fought earlier, led a raid across the border and killed several members of the US cavalry. He brings back the uniforms to use for disguises. McCord sees that one of the uniforms was that of Colonel Snow, who was supposed to be McCord’s contact at Fort Perry and would have warned the fort of the plan. McCord has no choice but to go through with the mission anyway. The next morning they head out.

            At the beginning of part 3 the marauders led by McCord reach Fort Perry. The ones in uniform pretend they are being chased by the bandits and so the fort opens its gate for them. Several fort soldiers give chase while McCord, Brissac and Crispo go to where the silver is being held. Meanwhile however one of the soldiers tells the fort commander Major Whitcomb that he recognized the man disguised as a colonel to be Jason McCord. Brissac and Crispo are about to steal the silver when McCord pulls a gun on them. But then Whitcomb has McCord placed under arrest. He doesn’t believe that he’s on a mission and he says he’ll face a firing squad tomorrow. On top of McCord’s alleged crimes the major resents McCord because while the major fought his way to the top, McCord was a West Point graduate and had everything handed to him. Whitcomb wants McCord to tell him who is in charge of the gang but McCord doesn’t think the major is competent to have that information. Later McCord tries to escape and makes it just outside the gates before he is recaptured. The next morning McCord is placed before the firing squad. McCord makes one last request, then the shots are heard. Afterward Whitcomb goes to see Brissac and Crispo and asks if McCord had been their leader. Crispo says he was a spy, then we see McCord is not dead as Whitcomb calls to him. McCord is freed and heads back to Washington.

            Whitcomb was played by Wendell Corey, who started acting in summer stock. He joined the Federal Theatre Project during the Depression. He made his Broadway debut in Comes the Revelation in 1942. He became a Broadway star when he played one of the lead roles in Dream Girl in 1945. This led to him being signed to Paramount Pictures. His film debut was in Desert Fury in 1947. He co-starred in The File on Thelma Jordon, No Sad Songs For Me, and Rear Window. He starred in the TV drama series Harbor Command. He starred in the TV sitcom Peck’s Bad Girl in 1959. He was president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1961 to 1963. As a Republican he was elected to the Santa Monica city council in 1965. He ran for congress in 1966 but didn’t win.

Adina and I danced to The Murder of Bryan Adams

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I didn’t see my daughter. Steve Lowe at the last minute offered me two tickets to see Tony Hightower’s band The Murder of Bryan Adams at the Spadina Hotel. I picked them up at Steve’s place and then went to the Café Verité to meet Adina. We walked to the Green Room where we said hi to Matthew and Peter, then we took the Spadina bus to King Street. We didn’t have to show our tickets because we were almost the only ones there. Before the concert Adina and I were kissing and Tony suggested we come up for air. Anodyne Necklace opened the show and Adina and I danced. Then Tony’s band played and we had a blast. I met Blitz, the bass player and was interested in having him play with Christian and the Lions. A few months later Tony got a cease and desist order from Bryan Adams’s lawyers and he had to change the name of his band. He changed it to The Trapped Tigers.

Charla Doherty

            On Sunday I went to bed after 2:30 and got up at 5:00 as usual. The problem is that I often doze off at the computer at night, sometimes for an hour and so I don’t update my journal until 2:00. 

            In the morning I memorized the third verse of “La vague à lames” (The Bladed Wave) by Serge Gainsbourg. That’s half the song. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third of four sessions. I audio and video recorded the session for the 43rd day of 45. It was a pretty good rehearsal and I think I got good takes of both “Vomit of the Star Eater” and “Sixteen Tons of Dogma”. 

            I weighed 87.75 kilos before breakfast. 

            I weighed 88.6 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 87.9 kilos at 17:50. I was caught up on my journal at 18:50. 

            I uploaded the video of my song “Me and Gravity” to YouTube. 

            I uploaded to my computer today’s song practice video. The 30 gig file however cut down on my hard drive space so I moved several files over to my external hard drive. I might have to transfer some more before this project is done. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a cut up slice of Black Forest ham, five-year-old cheddar, and my last egg. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 7 and 8 of Branded. 

            In the first story, McCord has been hired by a town to look for precious metals. He finds a large fault of high grade silver where three veins join. But warns that if there is a motherload it’s a long way down and it would take heavy equipment to get to it. However, when the town learns there is silver almost all the men and half the women head out there to prospect. How the town learned of it is a mystery because it was meant to be a secret. It turns out that it’s a gang of crooks led by Luke Garret who spread the rumour as they plan to rob the bank. They knock out the telegraph operator and destroy the machine. They then go to the sheriff’s office. He’s also gone to look for silver but has left the young deputy Clay Holden in charge. They tell him that they are going to rob the bank and they want him to collect all the guns in town and put them in the middle of the street by 16:00 or they will burn the town to the ground. Holden begins collecting the guns but when he goes to get McCord’s and describes the man who made the threat, McCord knows who he is. He says Garret served under him in the cavalry and was court martialed for arson. He tells Clay that Garret will burn the town anyway. McCord gets Clay to help, then several women are armed and they stand against the gang when they come at 16:00. When Garret sees McCord he tells the townspeople about his reputation as a coward and they begin to lose confidence. Then the men take Clay’s girl Karin hostage and so McCord backs down. Clay and the women turn in their guns. Clay is locked in the jail with Topaz as the guard. McCord busts in and kills him, then he frees Clay. Three of the gang are blowing the safe while another waits with the wagon. McCord takes out the driver. The gang leaves the bank with Karin but McCord surprises them from behind and shoots two while Clay takes out another. The gang is stopped. 

            Clay was played by Johnny Crawford, who played the son of Chuck Connors’s character on all 168 episodes of The Rifleman. 

            Karin was played by Charla Doherty, whose TV debut was at 15 on The Donna Reed Show. Her film debut was in Take Her She’s Mine. She played Julie Olson in the first season of Days of Our Lives. She co-starred in the TV movie In the Year 2889. 

            The second story is the first of a three part arc in colour. McCord is tracked down by his old girlfriend Lorette Lansing. They would have been married if not for the events of Bitter Creek that made him an outcast. She says her father Senator Lansing wants him to come to Washington to address a congressional committee. He comes to Washington with her. The senator also would like him to be his son in law. McCord visits his grandfather General McCord. Jason tells the general the truth about Bitter Creek and how General Reed lost his mind. McCord tells his grandfather that he was knocked unconscious during the Apache attack and woke up three days later in a farmhouse far away from the battle. The general says Jason made the right decision not exposing Reed as demented. That night McCord meets with the congressional committee. The senator says he wants to renegotiate the treaty with the Apache so settlers can have more land. McCord tells him that’s a bad idea. He refuses to testify to Reed’s incompetence in order to void the treaty. He is offended by the idea and leaves. Outside he’s attacked by three men but he is saved by Secret Service agents who tell him to come with them. McCord is taken to the White House to meet President Grant. Grant presents him with a mission that will cause him to be branded as a traitor.

October 14, 1994: Adina and I fell asleep while hugging on the couch

Thirty years ago today 

            On Friday I worked from 9:00 to 15:00 at Central Technical School. Later Adina came over to my place and we fell asleep in each other’s arms on the couch again.

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.

October 13, 1994: My daughter and I carved a pumpkin

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I posed in the morning at Central Technical School. After work I met Nancy at a Second Cup to pick up my daughter. She cried at first when she saw that I was taking her but she warmed up as we spent the day together and carved a pumpkin. Nancy came to get her after she fell asleep.

Brad Weston

            On Friday morning I memorized the twelfth verse of “Allons z'enfants” (Join the Ranks Kids) by Boris Vian. There are two verses left to nail down in my head. 

            I published on my Christian’s Translations blog and posted on Facebook “Love in Essence”, my translation of “L'amour en soi” by Serge Gainsbourg. There are eleven songs left in my project to translate his entire works. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of four sessions. I audio and video recorded the session for the 41st day of 45. The battery charge waned during “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” but I didn’t notice until the end of “Laisse tomber les filles”. I took the nine volt battery from the FS-6 foot switch and put it in the guitar. I redid the last song I’d done but since I had no idea how many songs were lost I didn’t redo everything. I bumped the guitar against the microphone stand during “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” so it wouldn’t have been a useable take anyway.

            I weighed 87.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 87.9 kilos at 18:00. 

            I spent a lot of time researching the career of Burt Reynolds for my blog and so I didn’t get around to finishing my “Me and Gravity” Movie Maker project. I’ll probably have it finished and uploaded to YouTube tomorrow. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching season 1, episodes 3 and 4 of Branded. 

            In the first story a band of Comanche warriors have been drinking and when Jason McCord rides past they attack. In trying to get away he comes across a man driving a wagon and tosses him a rifle so he can help him fight. They take shelter behind the wagon and McCord begins firing but the other man can’t bring himself to fire. The warriors retreat but McCord is angry at the other man for not fighting until he sees that he’s a priest. Father Jason Durant takes McCord to his mission where he teaches school to Comanche children. This is the first time we see the knife that McCord has made from his cavalry sword that was broken when he was drummed out of the service. Some Comanche warriors come to summon Durant to their camp to explain to Chief Looking Glass how three of his warriors were killed. Durant insists on going and learns that the warrior Wild Horse claims that Durant and McCord ambushed he and his men. Durant tells the real story and that the warriors had been drinking but Wild Horse denies it. Durant has to spend the night and the next day he is told he has to fight Wild Horse but he refuses. They don’t understand and think he’s a coward but McCord arrives and explains that he has the courage to be peaceful. McCord asks to fight for him and proves Durant won’t fight by hitting him a few times until the chief agrees to let McCord fight Wild Horse. Their fight is similar to a Medieval joust and McCord eventually wins but refuses to kill Wild Horse. Looking Glass says Wild Horse has dishonoured his people and should die but Durant asks he be spared. Durant is allowed to continue teaching the Comanche children. 

            In the second story McCord rides into McKinley where a woman named Elsie Baron runs a dress shop. At the same time a gunfighter named Charlie Vance who used to be involved with Elsie also arrives. He comes to see her but she says it’s over between them. He is angry about her running off on him months ago and begins to destroy her merchandize. The sheriff Joe Pollard confronts him and a crowd gathers as Vance tells them all that Elsie used to be a saloon girl. The people are scandalized and Vance tells her she has to go away with him now because her reputation is ruined in this town. McCord comes to see Elsie and tells her he owes her for saving his life after she found him pinned under a wagon. A little later Vance is shooting up the hotel and the sheriff is called but Elsie doesn’t have faith in him. She asks McCord to get Vance out of town without her. Vance challenges Pollard to arrest him but the sheriff is not a fighter and walks away. The sheriff was a farmer and he was elected sheriff when no one else wanted the job. Pollard gets McCord to agree to be deputized and summons the mayor but when the mayor hears he is Jason McCord he refuses. Then Vance kills someone so the sheriff and McCord go after him. They split up as Vance is trying to escape. It’s nighttime and from the shadows a gun is seen firing and Vance is shot in the back. The mayor accuses McCord of again being the coward he was charged as at Bitter Creek and demands that the sheriff arrest him. He does so and puts him in a cell. Then Vance’s brothers arrive to start shooting up the town and they want to hang McCord. The mayor wants to give McCord to the brothers to save the town. McCord tells the sheriff he knows it was him that shot Vance in the back. The sheriff goes out to tell the brothers that he killed Charlie. Then McCord confronts them and quickly disarms them both with light bullet wounds. He gets them to admit that he is faster than Charlie was and so he wouldn’t have needed to shoot him in the back. They agree. The mayor apologizes to him. McCord tells the citizens to beg Elsie to give them another chance.

            Charlie Vance was played by Brad Weston, who went to art school before he began acting. His film debut was in Savage Sam in 1963. He starred in the critically maligned martial arts movie Kill the Golden Goose. He played Ed Appel in the Star Trek episode Devil in the Dark. He was first considered as a permanent crewmember for Star Trek but the role of the teenage heartthrob character went to Walter Koenig. Weston committed suicide in 1999.

October 12, 1994: I kissed Steve on the cheek to embarrass him

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday I posed from 9:00 to 16:00 at the Ontario College of Art. That evening was the night Adina’s mother came to Fat Albert’s open stage. Later Adina and I walked to Albert’s Hall for the open stage there. I performed my song “Angeline” with Steve Lowe and then I walked Adina to the subway. When I returned to Albert’s Hall Tom Smarda was there and so he joined Steve and I for a couple more of my songs. Then Tom played with Steve on his song “I Wanna Take This Time”. Steve drove me up to the Black Rooster to meet Mary Milne but she was gone and so he gave me a lift to the Queen Streetcar. I gave him a kiss on the cheek probably to embarrass him.

Burt Reynolds

           On Thursday morning I ran through singing and playing “Love in Essence”, my translation of “L'amour en soi” by Serge Gainsbourg. I uploaded it to my Christian’s Translations blog and started preparing it for publication. I should have it posted tomorrow. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the second of two sessions. I audio and video recorded the session for the 40th of 45 sessions. It went fairly well this time and I got not bad takes of both “Vomit of the Star Eater” and “Sixteen Tons of Dogma”. The memory card wasn’t full until I was playing “Amsterdam”. Tomorrow I’ll be starting a four session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic guitar and after that there will be one more session with the Kramer and that will be the end of this year’s recording project. 

            I weighed 87.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            I weighed 88 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back stopped at Freshco. I bought three bags of green grapes, three packs of raspberries, bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a Black Forest ham, an eye of round roast, three bags of skim milk, a carton of spoon size shredded wheat, Full City Dark coffee, and a jar of salsa. I did a price match on the grapes because they were a little cheaper at Metro. 

            I weighed 87.7 kilos at 18:42. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:16. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Me and Gravity” I finished synchronizing the final chorus. I worked my way through it and every few words I would cut out a little of the old concert video until they were all lined up. All that’s left before publication is for me to figure out how to end it. In the old El Mocambo concert I theatrically fall at the end but after I do Tom Smarda walks over and puts his foot on top of me. I think I’ll cut that last part out. I might have it ready to upload to YouTube tomorrow. 

            I uploaded today’s song practice videos but didn’t have time to review any more of September 13. 

            I had a small potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching two episodes of Branded. I had planned on watching season 1, episodes 3 and 4 but I mistakenly viewed season 2, episodes 1 and 2. I should have noticed that it was season 2 because it was in colour. Other than that though there’s no difference in the type of stories that unfold. Nothing new develops and there’s no overall progression from tale to tale. 

            In the first story a stage coach headed for Fort Worth is carrying Major Tom Rock and his wife Laura, as well as Texas Ranger Tuttle and his prisoner Pierce Crawley. Jason McCord catches up with the stage to board it while it’s on route. Both Tom and Laura recognize Jason as Laura used to be romantically involved with him and Tom is one of the officers who voted to have him drummed out of the cavalry. Crawley recognizes McCord’s name and mocks him for having been a coward at Bitter Creek. The coach is attacked by Crawley’s brother Frank and his gang. The Ranger is killed and so are the driver and the shotgun. Jason goes up top and fights the gang off with his pistol, then he takes over as driver. Meanwhile Crawley has taken possession of the Ranger’s gun. So when they pull into the station Crawley takes them all prisoner and ties them up. When the old station master gets loose Crawley kills him. Laura gets hold of the station master’s gun then disarms Crawley and frees the others. Frank and his gang attack again. Jason and Tom fight them off and Frank is killed. 

            In the second story the cavalry are tracking a Mescalero chief named Red Hand who is on the run with his wife and infant child. He left the reservation, violating his treaty and is accused of wounding an officer. Major Lynch is obsessed with hunting him down dead or alive. McCord tells him that he’ll start a war if he kills him and asks to be allowed to go in alone to negotiate as he and Red Hand used to be friends. Jason finds Red Hand’s hideout and Red Hand attacks him but then recognizes him and stops. McCord tells him Lynch has promised that if he surrenders he’ll treat him as a respected leader and ask the governor to listen to his charges and demands. But when McCord delivers Red Hand, Lynch breaks his promise and arrests him. McCord tries to help him fight but they are both overwhelmed. Later in Rio Bronco, McCord happens to run into Judge Markham whose been appointed the district judge. McCord quotes the 14th Amendment, which states that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The judge says US law does not recognize Indians as “persons”. But that wasn’t the case. They were denied those things because they weren’t recognized as citizens. The judge says Red Hand must prove he’s a human being and take it to the Supreme Court if necessary. Red Hand has to first petition the judge for a writ of habeas corpus. Then McCord has to get the major to take Red Hand to Lordsburg so the judge can hear the motion. Meanwhile though Red Hand escapes. Lynch tracks him to his land and when Red Hand turns his back, Lynch shoots him. McCord shows Lynch the tears of Red Hand and of his wife Snow Child, then says only humans shed tears. The judge says he’s taking Snow Child to Lordsburg to get declared a person under the law. McCord tells Lynch that his hatred may have done something good after all. 

            Red hand was played by Burt Reynolds, who was on his way to becoming a professional football player when injuries ended that dream. He dropped out of college and headed for New York to work as an actor on stage and on TV. His TV debut was in Flight. His film debut was in Angel Baby. He starred as the Iroquois detective John Hawk on the TV series Hawk. He claimed to have some Cherokee roots but no evidence of that has been uncovered. Nonetheless he was often typecast as First Nations characters and pulled it off better than a lot of actors. He starred in Operation CIA, Navajo Joe, Shamus, Shark, Fade In, Impasse, Skullduggery, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, White Lightning, Hustle, The Mean Machine, W.W. and the Dixie Dance Kings, Gator (which he also directed), Nickelodeon, Smokey and the Bandit, Rough Cut, Smokey and the Bandit Ride Again, Smokey and the Bandit Part 3, Semi Tough, Hooper, Cannonball Run, Sharky’s Machine, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Stroker Ace, Stick, Paternity, Heat, Fuzz, Breaking In, Starting Over, At Long Last Love, The Man Who Loved Women, Best Friends, Physical Evidence, The Maddening, Big City Blues, The Last Producer (which he directed), Snapshots, Hard Ground, Cloud Nine, Forget About It, Deal, A Bunch of Amateurs, Elbow Grease, The Last Movie Star, An Innocent Kiss, Defining Moments, and Time of the Wolf. He co-starred in 100 Rifles, Sam Whisky, City Heat, Striptease, Boogie Nights (for which he was nominated for an Oscar), Pups, Mystery Alaska, The Longest Yard, Lucky Lady, Waterproof, Crazy Six, The Crew, Malone, Rent a Cop, Switching Channels, Modern Love, The Cherokee Kid, Meet Wally Sparks, Tempted, Hotel, The Hollywood Sign, Miss Lettie and Me, The Dukes of Hazzard, Broken Bridges, Not Another Not Another Movie, Reel Love, Pocket Listing, His co-starring role in Deliverance and his appearance as a nude centrefold in Cosmopolitan magazine made him one of the most famous celebrities of the 70s. He directed and starred in The End, He starred in the TV series Dan August, B.L. Stryker, and Evening Shade (for which he won an Emmy). He co-starred in the TV series River Boat, Gunsmoke, Out of This World. He was a contestant on The Dating Game in his early career. He co-produced the game show Win Lose or Draw, He was offered the part of James Bond. He was the first actor to guest host The Tonight Show. His insistence on doing his own stunts in his early films resulted in severe mobility problems in his later career. He recorded an album called Ask Me What I Am.