Marlene Clark

            On Thursday morning I memorized the third verse of “L'âme slave” (Slavic Soul) by Boris Vian.

            I worked out the chords for the intro and half the first verse of “Je suis capable de n’importe quoi” (I’m Capable of Anything) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Epi acoustic guitar during song practice for the third of four sessions. 

            I weighed 86.55 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since May 31. 

            My landlady sent me a bill for the damage to the ceiling down at Pope Yes from the flood I caused when I absent mindedly let the kitchen sink overflow on Sunday. I said I’d pay for the damage but $1423.80 was three times what I’d expected, especially when Raja had said it would be $300 or more. Maybe they’re making me pay for all the damage caused there by their faulty plumbing over the years. I don’t have the time or the energy to dispute it so I E-transferred the money. They better do something about the bedbugs now and shut up about everything else. 

            I weighed 87.25 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. I bought three bags of red grapes, four bags of green grapes, a pack of raspberries, some bananas, marinara sauce, and a box of saltines. I did a price match on the red grapes at the No Frills price of $8.80 a kilo.

            I weighed 85.95 kilos at 18:30. The last time I was that light in the evening was on my birthday on May 26. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:50. 

            I continued to search for classic cartoons featuring the characters singing jazz and found a few things worth bookmarking. I’m going to keep looking because I want to have lots to choose from to create a video for the Christian and the Lions studio recording of Brian Haddon’s “The Ballad of My Chest Cavity”.

            I roasted an Australian eye of round and had a slice with a potato and gravy while watching season 1, episode 23 of The Bill Cosby Show. 

            Chet’s colleague and girlfriend Vicki wants him to drop Gene from the football team because he is flunking her Algebra class. Chet says Gene is his best halfback. She says he’s been depressed since the team lost and can’t concentrate (Does she think being dropped from a team would make him less depressed and distracted?). Chet tries to talk to Gene and tell him winning is not the most important thing but doesn’t get through. Vicki tells Chet that athletics are not important for developing the mind but he says he can prove it to her. He asks her to come and watch him play handball that night and see the ways he uses his mind. That night Chet psyches out his opponent by pretending to be injured and also to shake his confidence by convincing him that the court is not structurally sound, that his clothing is wrong, and that the lighting is bad. It throws off his opponent’s confidence. In the audience, Vicki has a conversation with a man named Dave who she tells about Chet’s strategy of using psychology on the other player. He says, “That should be interesting”. Chet wins the game easily but Vicki is more impressed with the sportsmanship both players show than with Chet’s strategy. Chet is playing in the championship game the next night and Vickie decides to bring Gene so he can see the sportsmanship and understand how that’s more important than winning or losing. But Chet’s opponent turns out to be Dave who uses Chet’s psychological strategy against him and does it better. Chet’s sportsmanship flies out the window and he behaves badly when he starts losing. Chet loses the game but watching Chet’s lack of sportsmanship has hit home with Gene that that is exactly how he plays. He realizes now that he’s got to change, stop obsessing over the game, and start studying. Chet realizes he has to learn the same thing. 

            Vicki was played by Marlene Clark, who was a speech major and started acting in college. She worked as a fashion model before making her film debut in For Love of Ivy in 1968. She co-starred in Ganja and Hess, Night of the Cobra Woman, The Beast Must Die, and Black Mamba (during the love scene she says she was almost raped). She played Janet Lawson on six episodes of Sanford and Son. She was married to Billy Dee Williams from 1968 to 1971. She played a secretary in Enter the Dragon.