Quincy Jones

            On Wednesday morning I finished working out the chords to “Al Cassel’s Air” by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it in French and English before uploading it to my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare it for publication. 

            I played my old Epi acoustic guitar during song practice and it went out of tune a lot but slightly less than the Martin did. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my electric guitars. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since March 18. 

            At 13:00 I finished sanding the drywall compound over the cracks I’d filled on the western wall of my bathroom. The southern wall is the last part I’ll need the stepladder to reach. 

            I weighed 87.75 kilos before lunch. I had a toasted Montreal style bagel with Genoa salami, five-year-old cheddar and Dijon. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but it was raining lightly and got a little heavier as I went along, enough for me to turn and head home at Gladstone and Bloor. 

            I weighed 87.5 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. 

            I finished adding shades of blue to the sepia copy of the penultimate frame of my rainbow wave animation and started on the last one. I was over halfway done at suppertime. 

            I made pizza on two halves of a Montreal style bagel with Genoa salami, marinara sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episode 14 of The Bill Cosby Show.

            Chet is sick and has to stay home from his job as a high school gym teacher. Then his mother calls the school, learns he’s sick and comes over. When he lets her in she criticizes him for getting out of bed. She criticizes him for several other things like not wearing slippers, keeping a messy apartment, not having enough blankets, and not having any food in the fridge. For each one she adds, “No wonder you catch cold!” She puts camphorated oil on his chest and now he smells like moth balls. She goes out to the market and then Chet’s sister Vicki comes by and criticizes him for not wearing a bathrobe, adding “No wonder you’re sick!” She gives him some mysterious orange pills and afterwards he can’t blink. His mother returns and she and Vicki argue over whether Chet has a fever. His mother gives Chet a drink made of lemon juice, onion, sugar and kerosene. Kerosene used to be a popular home remedy until a little after WWII when access to professional medical care became more common. Now pretty much everyone knows kerosene is toxic and should not be taken internally. Vicki and Chet’s mother canceled their card game to take care of Chet but decide to have Helen and Betty come over to play there. Helen brings Chet some mustard green soup. Then Chet’s brother Brian comes over and gives him some of his own mixture, which they both get happily drunk from. The next day Chet goes to work and his co-coach Tom tells him he still looks horrible and tries to give him some raspberry juice. This wasn’t a particularly funny episode and seemed to be just an excuse to introduce some new characters.

            The music for The Bill Cosby Show was composed by Quincy Jones. At the age of 15 Ray Charles introduced him to heroin but he only used it for 5 months. In 1951 he won a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. But he dropped out to tour with Lionel Hampton as a trumpet player and conductor. He toured Europe with a production of Harold Arlen’s Free and Easy. He returned to New York and became the vice president of Mercury Records. While there he also composed and arranged for Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Count Basie, and Dinah Washington. His first hits as a producer were “It’s My Party”, “Judy’s Turn to Cry”, “Sunshine Lollipops and Rainbows”, and “You Don’t Own Me” by Lesley Gore. In 1963 he won his first Grammy for his Count Basie arrangement of “I Can’t Stop Loving You”. In 1967 he became the first black person to win the Oscar for Best Original Song with “The Eyes of Love”. He wrote the scores for The Pawnbroker, The Wiz and Roots. He became the conductor and arranger for Frank Sinatra’s orchestra, and arranged Sinatra’s recording of “Fly Me To the Moon”. He wrote the music for In the Heat of the Night and The Italian Job. He composed the theme song for Sanford and Son. He produced Michael Jackson’s albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad. He put out his own albums: The Dude, and Walking in Space. He wrote the score for The Colour Purple. He wrote the theme song for The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. His production company produced Jenny Jones and Mad TV. He was married to Peggy Lipton of The Mod Squad and they were the parents of Rashida Jones of the sitcom Parks and Recreation. He had a common-law relationship with Nastassja Kinski and they had one child. He won 26 Grammy Awards. His Listen Up Foundation built more than 100 homes in South Africa. He never learned to drive a car. He said The Beatles were the worst musicians in the world but I wonder if he said it after his brain aneurysm. He also claimed to know who killed JFK other than Oswald and that Marlon Brando had sexual relationships with James Baldwin, Richard Pryor and Marvin Gaye.