Robert Burton

            On Saturday morning I worked out the chords for the second verse and half of the third of “Je suis capable de n’importe quoi” (I’m Capable of Anything) by Serge Gainsbourg. I might be close to having the song finished tomorrow. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice. I kept the volume as low as it could be for it to still sound like an electric guitar. Tomorrow I’ll play the Kramer. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before breakfast.

            Around midday I rode my Raleigh down to No Frills. It was my first time riding it since the new saddle was installed. It’s definitely slightly higher than the old seat and I notice that I’m leaning forward a little more to reach the handlebars. At the supermarket I bought five bags of red grapes, two packs of raspberries, some organic bananas, two pack of five-year-old cheddar, a pack of New Zealand ground beef, a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread, dental floss, a jug of lemon iced tea, a container of skyr, a bag of original Miss Vickie’s chips and another of the apple wood smoke barbecue flavour. The bill was almost $150. 

            I weighed 87.15 kilos at 14:00. 

            In the afternoon I took my Raleigh to Metro Cycle to ask about getting an extension to raise my handlebars and I had to leave the bike there until maybe Monday. I rode the Surly downtown and back and found the disc brakes are squeaking again. I took it to Metro and Gordon sanded the rotors and pads. He said maybe I need higher end rotors. 

            I asked Gordon what happened to that weird guy who used to work for him. He didn’t know who I meant at first but I described him as having lots of tattoos and piercings but stressed that was not why he was weird. He said his name is Marvel and he fired him because he was stealing not only from the shop but also from customers’ bikes. He caught him on video doing it and the first time he gave him a warning. Gordon says his father owned a gas station and he told him that any employee that steals won’t change with a second chance. Gordon found Marvel’s Facebook marketplace account and saw him selling Metro Cycle stuff there. I thought he was weird because when he had my bike on the stand and I leaned on the counter to see what he was doing he gave me this intense dirty look like I was in his space. On top of that he took the wrong measurement. Gordon said that later when he was looking for new help Marvel actually applied again. 

            I weighed 86.15 kilos at 18:10. 

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

            I downloaded with ClipGrab all of the jazz cartoons I bookmarked over the last few days. Some of them took several minutes. 

            I reviewed my Kramer electric performances of “Laisse tomber les filles” and “Leave the Naïve Alone” on October 9 and 10 respectively. On October 9 the final take sounded okay and on October 10 it didn’t sound bad. 

            I got an email from Alex Wood letting me know his upgrading of my Martin acoustic guitar is almost finished. He said my plastic nut would be fine the way it is and asked if I still want to go with the bone nut. I said I did. 

            I made pizza on naan with marinara sauce, pesto, Genoa salami, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the penultimate episode of the first season of The Bill Cosby Show. 

            Chet is coaching the Holmes High School basketball team and it is doing well but the star player Bob Nicholson has a foul mouth. At the same time Chet is having student Gail Snyder come into his office to type up his course outlines. School counselor Marsha Patterson tells Chet he has to do something about Bob’s choices of words because it reflects badly on the school. Chet has a meeting with Bob and his words are beeped out but the implication is that he uses “fucking” a lot. Bob doesn’t think there is anything wrong the word. The other students come to the games just to hear Bob swear. Chet calls for a meeting with Bob’s father but his mother shows up, and it’s clear from her response where Bob gets his habit of cursing. Meanwhile Gail is still trying to type Chet’s course outlines but is constantly making mistakes and the wastebasket is full of discarded pages. Chet has a meeting with the team and (out of sight of the camera) writes on the blackboard the words they can’t say and what punishments they will be given if they say them or laugh at them, such as multiple laps around the gym and several push-ups. But it doesn’t stop Bob from swearing and so Chet benches him, which causes him to swear more. Chet has a talk with the team when Bob isn’t there and urges them to stop reacting to his swearing because it just encourages him. He also tells them that if this continues then he’s going to have to drop Bob from the team. They know he’s their best player and they don’t want that. Meanwhile Bob goes to Chet’s office where Gail is continuing to try to type the course outlines. Bob has come to ask Gail to come and watch his scrimmage that afternoon. She’s interested but says the guys on the team seem so rowdy and loud when they play. She agrees to come and so Bob has a talk with the rest of the team to ask them to clean up their language so as not to offend the girls. So during the game the boys come up with alternatives to swearing like “fudgecake”, “darn”, “marshmallow” and “peanut brittle”. Afterwards Gail hands Chet the course outlines but she rushed so she could go to the scrimmage and a lot of the words look like nonsense. Chet has to type it himself. I recall a similar My Three Sons episode in which a very similar problem with swearing on the basketball court was happening and a similar solution to the problem was found. I wonder if it was the same writer. 

            Bob was played by Robert Burton in his first TV role. He was studying to be a Catholic priest when he started getting into acting, following his mother who was involved in theatre. He did his first TV commercial in 1966. He earned a Bachelors Degree in Economics in 1968. He co-starred in the 1971 version of the TV series Lassie. He married Karen Black in 1973 and they co-starred in the TV movie Trilogy of Terror in 1974 but were divorced by the time it aired in 1975. His feature film debut was in Linda Lovelace for President. After he retired from acting he worked on Wall Street and then became a real estate agent. He wrote “7 days to Your Next Job”. He has a website called “Great Truths” which showcases his philosophy on life. It’s a very US patriotic site and the last post was just before the 2024 election. He seems to lean away from the left and suggests that the alternative to Kamala Harris might be common sense but doesn’t mention Trump. Maybe he’s Libertarian. There’s a callus where the bottom of my left middle finger meets my palm, probably from playing guitar. It had built up so much and gotten so rough that when I washed my face before bed I cut my left eyebrow. I took some sandpaper and smoothed the callus down.