Katherine Woodville

            On Wednesday morning my left arm was very sore after wrenching it the night before. I had been washing the dishes when my mug fell off the dish rack. I suddenly lunged with my left hand to try to catch it and the unusual movement hurt my arm. I was somewhat limited during yoga and wasn’t able to lean on my left arm, lift my behind and raise my left leg as I usually can. It’ll probably be okay in a day or two. 

            My tongue wasn’t sore from having bitten it on Monday night but there’s a boil there right now.

            I memorized the fifth verse of “L'année à lenvers” (The Year in Reverse) by Boris Vian.

            I searched for the chords to “Notre Derniere Chance” (Our Final Chance) by Serge Gainsbourg out of habit even though I didn’t expect to find them and I was right. I worked them out for the first half of the first verse. I would have gotten all of the first verse if the power hadn’t gone out for two minutes, so it took ten minutes to get everything back up again. Once I’ve established the chords for the first verse I think the rest of the verses will be the same. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third of four sessions and it stayed in tune most of the time. 

            I weighed 86.55 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since July 19. 

            Around midday I brought in the stepladder and sanded the second coat of drywall compound from the northern half of the bathroom ceiling, plus all the upper areas of the east and northern walls. Tomorrow I think I’ll just finish the ceiling so I’ll be done with the stepladder and then on Friday I might be able to finish sanding the rest of the bathroom. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before lunch. Last Wednesday was the last time I was that light in the early afternoon. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. 

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

            I weighed 86.35 kilos at 17:50. 

            I worked on the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia”. The concert video continues to drag behind the studio audio and so every few words I have to delete some of it to bring it forward. In the third and fourth verses I managed to synchronize the concert video with the studio audio for “pass painfully”, “through”, “borderlines”, “I tiptoe”, “cross”, and “a nervous”. In the concert video I use the word “rabid” instead of “nervous” but it’s not that noticeable when I replace the video sound with the studio audio and line up the two words. 

            I compared the song practice video of my electric performance of “How to Say Goodbye to You” on September 30 to that of September 24 and I found that September 30 looks and sounds better. I compared October 4 to September 30 and still prefer September 30. I compared October 6 with the Kramer to September 30 with the Gibson. The Kramer sounds cleaner but also like the way the Gibson sounds and so I might keep both. I compared October 10 to October 6 and I think I play it better on October 10, so I’ll upload that to YouTube but also September 30. 

            I started a Movie Maker project for my September 27 song practice. The video starts in part B with “Comment te dire adieu”, which is the song I want to upload to YouTube. The audio starts at the beginning of the session and so I deleted everything that comes before “Comment te dire adieu” but it’s still only lined up with part A of the videos. It’ll take a half hour or more to get the audio caught up with the final take of the song. 

            It was finally not too hot to use the oven and so I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, a halved New Zealand grass fed beef burger, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the first season finale of The Bold Ones: The New Doctors.

            Leland Rogers is a high level diplomat who speaks both Arabic and Hebrew fluently and has a crucial role in a secret plan called Operation Olive Branch with the goal of bringing peace to the Middle East. But Leland is hearing a voice in his head telling him to kill. He hears it when he is alone with the US president and picks up a razor but doesn’t go through with it. Later he starts trashing his home and when his wife Kim confronts him he tries to strangle her. He leaves and goes to the hospital to ask for help from his friend Dr. Stuart. A government official wants to take him to be cared for in Washington because he has top secret information but Dr. Stuart convinces him to let Dr, Hunter try a treatment that he has been researching. Leland is treated with both psychotherapy and chemicals and progress is made. Kim is given permission to visit but he starts telling her about Operation Olive Branch then accuses her of forcing the information from him. He tries to strangle her again but then stops himself. This is being observed by Doctors Stuart, Hunter, and Craig through a two way mirror and the fact that he stopped himself is considered to be progress. He is eventually allowed to leave and to continue with his mission. There was an experiment earlier by Hunter in which a man is given a blood transfusion from schizophrenics and it changes his behaviour. I looked into this and found that those diagnosed with schizophrenia are screened out as potential blood donors. Stories that depict people hearing voices in their heads tend to have the voices making negative commands but they can be just as often positive or probably more often neither. 

            Kim was played by Katherine Woodville, who began acting in England at the age of 16 in a touring production of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. Her film debut was in The Clue of the New Pin in 1961. Her TV debut was in The Avengers in 1961. She co-starred in The Party’s Over. Her second husband was Patrick Macnee and her fourth husband was Edward Albert, the son of Eddie Albert. She guest starred as the High Priestess Natira in the 1968 Star Trek episode The World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky”. She was a member of the Actors Studio. In the 70s she retired from acting and became a horse breeder and trainer. I won’t be watching the second season of this series. Medical dramas kind of make me feel sick unless they are quirky or funny like House was.

July 31, 1995: I performed at the Café Sopra Sotto

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday evening I performed on the open stage at the Café Sopra Sotto.

Sheila Larken

            This is the beginning of the thirteenth year of this journal. 

            On Tuesday morning my tongue still hurt from me biting it while biting supper. Luckily the tongue heals quickly but I do seem to bite my tongue more often in the last few years. I probably do that because of having had some teeth removed, leaving the remaining teeth with edges that didn’t meet my tongue before. 

            I finished memorizing “Notre Derniere Chance” (Our Final Chance) by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll look for the chords but I doubt anyone has posted them and so I’ll start working them out. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of four sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. I almost bit my tongue again but on the other side. 

            I weighed 87.05 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I brought in the stepladder and started sanding the second coat of drywall compound from the bathroom ceiling and walls. I did the southeast corner of the ceiling and the top of the walls in that area. At the top of the south wall there is still a bit of a groove in some places just before it meets the ceiling but I’m not going to bother adding a third coat of filler. It’s not really obviously visible from the floor. I think my neighbour Benji banged on the wall to complain about the noise of my sanding. I only do it for about half an hour a day and it’ll probably only take another three days for me to do all the areas that are on the other side of his walls. When I move on to the next phase of my bathroom renovation he’ll probably complain about the smell of the paint. Tomorrow I’ll sand the northeast corner of the ceiling and the tops of the walls in that area. I might also have time to do the northwest corner. 

            I weighed 87.05 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco to buy grapes. I got five bags of red grapes but then noticed they finally had Canadian cherries (and they were cheap!). I grabbed five bags. I did a price match on the grapes with the No Frills price of $4.14 a kilo and saved $45. I didn’t notice until I was packing my purchases away that they’d mixed the bags of Canadian cherries with those of US cherries so I only actually bought two bags of the Canadian ones. I also noticed that the grapes are from the US but apparently the company is Canadian.

            I weighed 85.55 kilos at 18:15, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since July 18. 

            I was caught up with my journal at 19:20. 

            I worked on the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia”. The concert video continues to drag behind the studio audio and so every few words I have to delete some of it to bring it forward. In the third verse I managed to synchronize the concert video with the studio audio for “across a”, “hostile ocean”, “of time. I am”, “a ghost but only”, and “part, so”. 

            I compared the song practice video of my October 5 Kramer performance of “Comment te dire adieu” to my October 3 Gibson performance. I like the feel of the October 3 video but the action on the Gibson was too low and making it sound rattly. I compared October 9 to October 5 and I think October 9 is better, plus that session is already in Movie Maker, so that’s the version I’ll upload to YouTube. 

            I compared my September 2 electric performance of “How to Say Goodbye to You” with that of September 18 and I think September 2 sounds better. I compared September 20 to September 2 and September 20 looks better. I compared September 24 to September 20 and September 24 looks and sounds better. There are five more to compare. 

            It was too hot to cook and so I had three barbecued pork ribs cold with potato chips, skyr and dill. I had supper with a beer while watching the penultimate episode of The Bold Ones: The New Doctors. 

            A jaundiced 14 year old girl named Ali is brought into the hospital but they have trouble communicating with her because she is intellectually disabled (Ali’s mother Anita has kept her at home since birth. But it was her father that really took care of her, patiently spending seven months teaching her to tie her shoe laces. But then the father died and Ali’s sister found her under the covers clutching her father’s shoes. They still used the word “retarded” in 1969. It wasn’t officially considered pejorative until 2010). Dr. Hunter thinks it’s her liver and that she might have infectious hepatitis so she is isolated. But they don’t know if it’s viral or toxic. Her liver has enlarged. They give Ali 24 units of blood. After time if they can keep her alive the liver cells may stop dying and start regenerating. Ali is in a coma. Hunter examines the mother’s garage and finds carbon tetrachloride, which Ali might have breathed or ingested. Now hunter thinks Ali’s kidneys may have been damaged. Anita is reluctant to allow a renal biopsy because she thinks Ali has had too many tests but she finally agrees. Ali’s beloved sister Liz agrees to allow her own liver to be connected to Ali’s so it can have a rest. Ali’s blood will run through Liz’s system to be purified by her liver. Liz doesn’t need her mother’s permission because she’s 21 but they still need Anita’s consent for Ali. She takes quite a bit of time to convince. Later Liz sings to Ali and she stirs from her coma. 

            Liz was played by Sheila Larken, who played Dana Scully’s mother on 17 episodes of The X-Files. She has also made guest appearances on several TV series and played supporting roles in made for TV movies.

July 30, 1995: My daughter and I enjoyed the warm weather together

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday my daughter and I probably enjoyed the warm weather together in the park.

Hazel Scott

            On Monday morning I memorized the fifth verse of “Notre Derniere Chance” (Our Final Chance) by Serge Gainsbourg and worked on my translation. There is only one verse left to learn.

            Around midday I walked over to the hardware store to buy some P120 sandpaper. On the way I saw Leslie the dramatic panhandler who always acts as if it’s a matter of life and death that she get some change. On a few occasions I’ve heard her threaten to commit suicide. She asked me to help her find her keys. I was surprised that she’s not homeless because how can one have a place to live and still smell like three day old pee? I’ve seen her on the street for years with her partner Paul, who she told me now that he’s been her husband for 25 years. Paul was across the street and she told me he has his key to their place, so I told her to get his key and I would pay to make a copy at the hardware store. She was amazed and very grateful that I would do that. She’s very cautious about crossing the street and so I told her to meet me in a few minutes at the Home Hardware. I bought five sheets of sandpaper and paid for a key to be copied, but when Leslie came in she had three keys and so I said that I would pay to copy the other two as well. Just as the counter person started to grind the key Leslie reached in her pocket and discovered that she had her keys all along. She asked if I could get a refund and so I put my card back in and got it. She was still there when I left as the clerk was telling her to have a nice day as a hint for her to go. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. When I got home I went back out to buy a six-pack of Creemore. 

            I weighed 86.65 kilos at 17:40. 

            I was caught up with my journal at 18:37. 

            I worked on the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia”. The concert video continues to drag behind the studio audio and so every few words I have to delete some of it to bring it forward. In the third verse I managed to synchronize the concert video with the studio audio for “bad ship donut shop”, “so”, “it can ferry”, “me”, and “across”. 

            I compared the song practice videos of my acoustic performances of “How to Say Goodbye to You” on September 16 and 22. I probably play it better on September 22 but I favour the look of September 16. I compared September 26 to September 16 and prefer the look and feel of September 26. I compared September 28 to September 26 and the former is definitely better. I compared October 2 to September 26 and I still prefer September 26. I compared October 8 to September 26 and September 26 is still the best looking video. I compared October 13 to September 26 and October 13 was the day someone was water blasting the building on the southwest corner. So September 26 is the take of “How to Say Goodbye to You” that I’ll upload to YouTube. 

            I compared the videos of my electric performances of “Comment te dire adieu” on September 19 to that of September 23. There was too much traffic noise on September 23. I compared September 29 to September 19 and find that September 19 looks a bit better. I compared October 3 to September 19 and I prefer the look and feel of October 3. There are two left to compare.

            It was too hot to use the stove but I had to because I’d already thawed out a rack of ribs. So I grilled the ribs and had three with potato chips, skyr, dill and a beer while watching the antepenultimate episode of the first season of The Bold Ones: The Doctors (I bit my tongue while eating and it hurt. I noticed later it was one of the worst tongue bite wounds I’ve ever had). 

            Dr. Stuart is working past midnight and goes into the staff kitchen where he finds an elderly patient named Emma Fields who has snuck in past the nurses to have a cup of tea. She tells him she has cancer and he becomes involved with her case. She doesn’t really know that she has cancer but Stuart does some tests and finds she has a malignant melanoma. She might die but it’s not considered terminal, however she has resigned herself to dying. Stuart thinks it’s a mistake to put someone like Emma in a ward with the terminal patients because it encourages resignation towards death. He moves her into a room with two other patients: business person Dolly Martin and folk singer G.G. Gilman. They all become friends. Dolly is always on the phone running her business and G.G. is always playing guitar. Emma wakes to hear Dolly crying in the night and comforts her. G.G. has nerve damage in her fingers and vocal chords and may not be able to play and sing in the future. Emma decides she doesn’t want any more tests and prefers to die with dignity. Stuart tries to convince her that she has a chance to live but fails. She learns that Dolly has terminal cancer but doesn’t let it bring her down. Emma finally comes around and decides to go ahead with the procedure. 

            Dolly was played by Hazel Scott who was a child prodigy and started playing piano at the age of 3. When she was 4 her family moved to New York from Trinidad. At 8 she received a scholarship to study classical music at Juilliard. She was a club and radio star by the late 1930s both as a musician and singer. She played twice at Carnegie Hall. She was able to switch seamlessly from classical, to jazz, to blues. Her biggest hit was “Tico Tico”. By 1945 she was earning $75,000 a year, which today would be more than a million dollars. She helped to change how black women were portrayed in Hollywood films by refusing to play maids. She co-starred in “I Dood It” and “Rhapsody in Blue”. She successfully sued a Spokane, Washington restaurant for refusing to serve her because she was black. She refused to perform in segregated theatres. In 1950 she became the first black person to host her own television show but it was canceled after she testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee. She left the US and lived in Paris from 1957 to 1967. She then returned to the states where she made guest appearances on several TV series.

July 29, 1995: My daughter and I cooled off in the wading pool

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday it was a hot day and so my daughter and I must have cooled off at the wading pool in Kew Gardens.

Lois Nettleton

            On Sunday morning I didn’t consciously hear the alarm at 5:00 but it must have woken me up because I was lying there half awake for a while, thinking I still had lots of time to sleep when I looked at my phone and saw it was 5:36. It was very muggy and I was stuffed up. I rushed through yoga and then shortened my memorization projects.

            I memorized the fourth verse of “L'année à lenvers” (The Year in Reverse) by Boris Vian and didn’t try the fifth. That’s half the song anyway. 

            I memorized the fourth verse of “Notre Derniere Chance” (Our Final Chance) by Serge Gainsbourg and worked on my translation. There are only two verses left. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice and only had to tune it twice. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic guitar. 

            I weighed 87.25 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I finished applying the second and hopefully final coat of drywall compound in the bathroom. Next I need to buy some more sandpaper to smooth everything down, then wash again. I think I’ll be priming the room in August. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was hot outside but worse in the apartment. 

            I weighed 86.45 kilos at 17:45.

            I was caught up with my journal at 18:30. 

            I worked on the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia”. The concert video continues to drag behind the studio audio and so every few words I have to delete some of it to bring it forward. After the first chorus I managed to synchronize “I”, “take”, a brief”, “ride”, “on the”, and “bad”. 

            I compared the song practice video of my performance of “Comment te dire adieu” on September 9 with that of September 5. September 5 looks nicer but I think I play the song more solidly on September 9. I compared September 11 to September 9 and I think September 9 looks and feels better. I compared September 15 to September 9 and still think September 9 is on top. I compared September 21 to September 9 and September 9 looks better. I compared September 25 to September 9 and found that September 25 looks and sounds a little better. I compared September 27 to September 25 and found September 27 to look and feel a little better. I compared October 1 to September 27 and still prefer September 27. I compared October 7 to September 27 and still prefer the look and my playing on September 27. I compared October 11 to September 27 and find September 27 is still the one with a better look and better playing. I compared October 13 to September 27 and September 27 is the one I’ll be uploading to YouTube. 

            I compared the song practice video of my performance of “How to Say Goodbye to You” on September 4 with that of September 10. I prefer the look of September 4. I compared September 16 to September 4 and I think September 16 has a slightly better look and better playing. 

            It was too hot to use the stove and so I had a cold New Zealand grass fed beef burger on multigrain bread with five-year-old cheddar. I ate it with a beer while watching episode 7 of The Bold Ones: The New Doctors. 

            Dr. Hunter gives a lecture on amniocentesis: the future of genetic counseling. Some defects can be detected in the foetus cells and there are treatments that can correct or modify the effects of certain abnormal genes. But in most cases amniocentesis can only relieve or confirm prospective parents’ fears. One of the attendees is Laura Michaels, a former lover of Hunter’s who is now married to Charles Michaels. Laura is particularly interested in the subject because she is pregnant with her second child. The first one she had with Charles was born dead. Hunter wants Laura to consider taking the test. She goes home to Charles who seems disturbed. He refers to the baby she’s carrying as a monster. Meanwhile some of the trustees at the hospital find amniocentesis to be controversial and so Hunter needs to try to convince them how important it is. Charles comes with Laura to discuss the procedure with Hunter. Hunter wants some of Charles’s medical history. He says he’s 38 but looks much older. His parents died when he was young and he was brought up by his aunt. He says he had a check-up two months ago but Laura says it was more like two years. Charles gets mad about her correcting him and storms out. Later Laura comes to the hospital to check in for the procedure. There’s a black and blue wound on her cheek that she says came from walking into a door. She goes through the procedure and it’s discovered there are no defects in the foetus. As Charles comes to help Laura pack, Hunter notices a tic in his hand movements and now remembers other tics that he’s seen on Charles’s face. Hunter does some research into Charles’s family background and discovers that there is a history of Huntington’s. Charles’s tics show that he has the disease. This was not something they could have detected in the tests they gave Laura but apparently now, 55 years since that show aired it can be determined in the womb whether a child will grow up to develop the disease. There is still no cure. There is a 50-50 chance that Laura’s child will be normal. She agrees to let Hunter take Charles to be cared for at the Institute. 

            Laura was played by Lois Nettleton, who was Miss Chicago of 1948 and a runner up in the Miss America pageant. She began acting in community theatre at the age of 11 and appeared on local radio and TV. She trained at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and then studied the Method at the Actors Studio in New York. She made her Broadway debut in The Biggest Thief in Town in 1948. She won the Clarence Derwent Award for her performance in “God and Kate Murphy”. Her film debut was in A Face in the Crowd but her first credited role was in Period of Adjustment. She co-starred in The Man in the Glass Booth (her personal favourite role), She was nominated for six Emmy Awards and won two. She played Lou Grant’s boss on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She was a regular guest on the game show Pyramid. She played Joanne St. John on In the Heat of the Night.

July 28, 1995: It was the time of year when I'd most enjoy a beer but couldn't afford one

Thirty years ago today

            Friday would have been a payday but I don’t think I had any paycheques coming since work for the Board of Education and the Ontario College of Art dried up from the beginning of summer until September. Summer was always the leanest time of year for me financially. The time when I would enjoy a beer the most was the time when I couldn’t afford one.

Norma Crane

            On Saturday morning I memorized the third verse of “Notre Derniere Chance” (Our Final Chance) by Serge Gainsbourg and worked on a bit of my translation. The concept is the speaker is saying that the daily, weekly and monthly periodicals are too much of a distraction for their relationship and so the speaker and their lover need to burn up all the newspapers in order to save their romance. A lot of the song consists of lists of newspapers and magazines they need to set on fire, some of which still exist and some of which were no longer being published even when the song was written in 1969, such as “Combat”, which was a WWII French newspaper. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio guitar during song practice and it went out of tune quite a bit during the first half but settled down more in the second. 

            I weighed 86.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I rode down to No Frills where I went through every bag of the on sale red grapes but only found four bags of relatively firm ones. I bought a bag of green grapes, three packs of Ontario raspberries, a pack of Ontario peaches, a pack of Ontario nectarines, some bananas, two pack of five-year-old cheddar, mouthwash, dental floss, Irish Spring soap, lemon dish detergent, Mini Wheats (because they were out of spoon sized shredded wheat), ketchup (I’ve been buying chili sauce for a long time but I’m easing back on the hot stuff), dill, a jug of iced tea, a jug of orange juice, a container of skyr, two bags of Miss Vickie’s chips, and a pack of toilet paper. They had sirloin tips on sale but they were from the US do I didn’t get one. My groceries cost me over $175. When I was raising my daughter that would have paid for two weeks of supplies. 

            In the supermarket a woman approached me and asked how I was, telling me it was nice to see me, although I don’t think we’ve met. At the checkout she approached to tell me she was going to go do her laundry at the laundromat next door because she couldn’t do it at home. She informed me that when she was done washing and drying her clothing she would fold them. I told her that was a good idea although I’ve never really understood the reason for folding laundry. 

            I weighed 87.2 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 86.7 kilos at 17:50. 

            I was caught up with my journal at 18:45. 

            I worked on the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia”. The concert video continues to drag behind the studio audio and so every few words I have to delete some of it to bring it forward. In the first chorus I managed to synchronize “is”, “slippery with”, “ice in summer weather and amidst”, “all”, “this blindness”, and “I feel I can see forever midst this blindness I feel I can see forever”. That completes lining up the studio audio with the concert video for the first two verses and the first chorus. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my acoustic performance of “How to Say Goodbye to You” on October 14 and the take at 9:30 in part B wasn’t bad. I also reviewed my electric performance of “Comment te dire adieu” on October 15 and the take at the end of part D wasn’t bad until the last note. This was the last video for that day as the battery needed a recharge. 

            I compared the song practice videos of my acoustic performance of “Comment te dire adieu” on September 3 and 5. The camera is in a better position on September 5 and I think I played it a bit better as well. There are ten more to compare. 

            I made four burgers from the ground New Zealand grass fed beef and grilled them in the oven. I had one on a slice of toasted multigrain sandwich bread with ketchup, Dijon, horseradish, a gherkin pickle and a beer while watching episode 6 of The Bold Ones: The Doctors. 

            Dr. Herb Lanier is performing a heart surgery that is being televised live. While inside he decides to use an experimental vein transplant procedure that Dr. Stuart has been working on. The operation seems to be a success but Stuart doesn’t think it should have been done because the procedure is not yet ready for humans. The next day Lanier, Stuart and Dr. Hunter visit the patient and he goes into fibrillation. Within minutes he is dead. There is no way of knowing for sure if the procedure caused problem but Stuart thinks it did. Their disagreement causes Lanier to submit his resignation and he moves on to become head of surgery at a nearby hospital. Stuart is approached by the Lewellyn Foundation, which is impressed with his research into vein transplants, especially since the success of Lanier’s operation, and is considering granting $1 million to the hospital. Stuart disagrees that the surgery was successful and only thinks it was lucky. Lanier tells the newspapers that Stuart is too cautious and that history doesn’t reward the timid. Later Alice Cleary goes to see Hunter about her husband who is a heart patient at the hospital. Stuart says her husband is not ready for surgery and drugs will sustain him for a couple more years until the research is solid. She doesn’t understand why they can’t do the surgery since she read all about it in the news that it was done successfully before. Stuart tells her where she can find Lanier. After she consults him he approaches Stuart to ask if he can examine her husband without moving him to the other hospital and Stuart agrees. Then Lanier asks if he can do the surgery there and Stuart says okay. When Lanier asks Stuart to assist him he at first refuses. Hunter reminds him that if the surgery is successful Stuart will get all the credit but if it’s a failure Stuart will get all the blame. He decides to help for Cleary’s sake. Cleary’s heart fails and Lanier has to defibrillate. Stuart puts in a pacemaker. Lanier says the transplant isn’t working. Stuart suggests a minimal palliative operation to increase the blood supply to the heart muscle. If it succeeds they can try a vein transplant when the procedure is ready. Lanier assists Stuart to finish and it saves Cleary’s life. Stuart gives the credit to Lanier even though it was him that saved the patient. He explains he did it because then Lanier will be the one to have to deal with Mrs. Cleary. 

            Ann Cleary was played by Norma Crane, who was a member of the Actors Studio. She made her Broadway debut in The Crucible. She co-starred in a 1953 television adaptation of 1984. She co-starred as Golde, Tevye’s wife and the mother of their three daughters in the film adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof.

July 27, 1995: I spent the day writing

Thirty years ago today 

            On Thursday I spent the day writing.

John Saxon

            On Friday morning I memorized the third verse of “L'année à lenvers” (The Year in Reverse) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the second verse of “Notre Derniere Chance” (Our Final Chance) by Serge Gainsbourg and worked on my translation. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar for the last of two sessions and it stayed in tune. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my electric guitars. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I brought in the stepladder and applied a second coat of drywall compound to the rest of the bathroom ceiling and the upper walls. Maybe I’ll have the lower walls finished on Sunday. 

            I weighed 87.25 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 86.65 kilos at 18:15. 

            I was caught up with my journal at 19:12. 

            I worked on the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia”. The concert video continues to drag behind the studio audio and so every few words I have to delete some of it to bring it forward. In the first chorus I managed to synchronize “kind words are an even”, “greater”, “evil”, and “Queen Street West”. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “How to Say Goodbye to You” and “Comment te dire adieu” from October 8 to 13. On October 8 and 12 I played “How to Say Goodbye to You” on my Martin acoustic guitar. On October 8 the final take wasn’t bad and looked good but Part A of the October 12 video is corrupted and that’s the part in which the song was recorded. On October 10 I played it on my Kramer electric guitar and the take at 45:00 didn’t sound bad. I played “Comment te dire adieu” on October 9, 11, and 13. On October 9 I played it on the Kramer and on October 11 and 13 I used the Martin. All three final takes were okay. 

            It wasn’t too hot to use the stove and so I had a potato with gravy and my last chicken leg while watching episode 5 of The Bold Ones: The New Doctors. 

            Dr. Hunter and Dr. Stuart are doing tests on the astronauts who will be the next ones to go to the Moon. Mike Carter’s wife Ann comes to see Hunter to tell him she thinks Mike should be removed from the mission because he has anxiety about being the first black person on the Moon and he’s been having nightmares. But Hunter and Stuart find Mike to be in perfect health and no more anxious than the other two crewmembers, who’ve been having nightmares as well. The crew blasts off and they reach lunar orbit. The doctors are observing the astronauts remotely and find Mike to be more tense than the others. After a restless sleep cycle Mike is breathing quickly and heavily. He has mild nausea and light headedness. The Mission Control doctor at NASA puts the crew on cyclizine. Mike recovers and he and Walt put on their spacesuits to check out the lander. Walt passes out, is wheezing and his lips are slightly blue. The doctors are theorizing that a combination of things may have caused Walt’s condition. What they need is a blood sample, which of course they can’t get but they decide to find someone with Walt’s blood type and run them through a simulation of the same conditions. It turns out that Stuart has Walt’s blood type and he volunteers. Stuart is given every substance that Walt has been given in the spacecraft in sequence. They eliminate reactive elements and cut the recipe down to 47 items. They speculate that it might have been something Walt breathed while in the spacesuit. They try dichloroacetamide and stand by with the antidote. Stuart takes on the same symptoms as Walt. They give him the antidote and he recovers. They have Mike give Walt the injection and he recovers. They go ahead with the Moon landing. 

            Stuart was played by John Saxon, who was discovered at the age of 16 and became a model. After graduating from high school he studied acting with Stella Adler. His TV debut was on Medic in 1954. His film debut was in It Should Happen to You in 1954. His first credited role was in Running Wild in 1955. He co-starred in The Unguarded Moment, Rock Pretty Baby, Summer Love, This Happy Feeling, The Reluctant Debutante, The Big Fisherman, Posse From Hell, The Cavern, The Appaloosa (for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe), Joe Kidd, One Dollar Too Many, I Kiss the Hand, Violent Naples, Enter the Dragon, Blood Beach, Portrait in Black (which earned him a New Star Golden Globe), Shalimar, Fast Company, and Battle Beyond the Stars. He starred in The Restless Years, Cry Tough, War Hunt, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, The Night Caller, For Singles Only, The Wonderful Years, Queen of Blood, The Glove, and Cannibal Apocalypse. He played Tony Cumson on Falcon Crest and Rashid Ahmed on Dynasty.

July 26, 1995: I posed for the Forest Hill Art Club

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday I posed in costume in the morning and afternoon for the Forest Hill Art Club at 666 Eglinton Avenue West. That evening I probably went to the Csarda Hungarian restaurant on Elm Street to perform on the Art Bar reading series open stage.

JoAnna Cameron

            Last evening I made a few more attempts to find a transcription app that could give me the lyrics to “Notre Derniere Chance” (Our Final Chance) by Serge Gainsbourg as sung by Zizi Jeanmaire in the video I downloaded from Daily Motion. The one that seemed to work best was Sonix, the transcription from which I took a screen shot. On Thursday morning I transcribed the lyrics from the jpg. and they look pretty accurate as I sang along while looking at them. I memorized the first verse. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions and it only went out of tune a couple of times. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos before breakfast. Around midday I worked on my Batgirl 19 video, using season 3, episode 19 of Batman but only with the scenes featuring Batgirl. 

            I weighed 87.35 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back stopped at Freshco. I bought five bags of red grapes, a pack of blueberries, some bananas, a pack of Full City Dark coffee, and a jar of salsa. I price matched the grapes with the No Frills price of $4.14 a kilo. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos at 18:11. 

            I was caught up with my journal at 19:04. 

            I worked on the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia”. The concert video continues to drag behind the studio audio and so every few words I have to delete some of it to bring it forward. In the first chorus I managed to synchronize “Devil they believe”, “Each”, “greeting is a curse and kind…”. 

           I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “How to Say Goodbye to You” and “Comment te dire adieu” from September 30 to October 7. On September 30 and October 4 I played “How to Say Goodbye to You” on my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar. On September 30 the final take at 32:45 didn’t sound too bad. On October 4 the take at 11:00 in part B was okay. On October 6 I played it on my Kramer electric and the final take was okay. On October 2 I played it on my Martin acoustic guitar and the take at 46:00 was not bad. On October 1 and 7 I played “Comment te dire adieu” on the Martin. On October 1 the last take was okay. On October 7 the take at 54:00 wasn’t bad. On October 3 I played it on the Gibson and the final take sounded okay for low action. On October 5 I played it on the Kramer and the last take didn’t sound too bad. 

           It was too hot to use the stove so I just had an already cooked chicken leg cold with chips, skyr, salsa and a beer while watching episode 4 of The Bold Ones: The New Doctors. 

           Dr. Stuart is being sued for malpractice and Henry Speiser the prosecutor is attacking him on the witness stand. During a heart operation he was supposed to replace two heart valves but he replaced three. After opening the heart he saw the third was needed. Speiser accuses him of arrogance for not having sought a second opinion before making the decision. His attacks are so vitriolic that the judge has to reel him in with a warning. As Speiser walks away he has a heart attack. He is taken to a hospital but later asks to be transferred to the place where Stuart works because it’s the best. Speiser needs surgery and asks specifically for Stuart because he’s the best. Stuart is confused but Speiser explains that in court he had to attack him because that’s his job. During surgery Stuart sees that Speiser’s heart is no longer properly functional and he replaces it with an artificial heart until they can get a donor. Unfortunately a donor is hard to find because Speiser’s tissue type is rare. Finally they find a donor in St Louis but it’s from an older patient with a history of emphysema. Dr. Craig the hospital head has to put the decision before the board but at that meeting Speiser’s daughter Jan comes in and speaks for her father. She says that at least with an imperfect heart he’ll live to fight another day. So he gets the heart, recovers, and then hands Stuart a subpoena so they can continue the lawsuit where they left off. 

            Jan Speiser was played by JoAnna Cameron in her TV debut. In college she made friends with Linda Hope, and with the help of Linda’s father Bob Hope made her 1969 film debut in How to Commit Marriage. In 1975 she starred in the Saturday morning super hero adventure series The Secrets of Isis. In the show she played Andrea Thomas, who is a direct descendant of the female Egyptian Pharoah Hatshepsut. Andrea acquired an amulet that had belonged to her ancestor and it gave her the powers of the Goddess Isis: flight, strength, speed, and telekinesis. The series lasted two seasons. In the late 70s she made a living doing TV commercials and entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the number of commercials in which she appeared. She retired from acting in the 80s and worked as a home nurse for ten years. After that she spent several decades in marketing for the hotel industry.

July 25, 1995: I hosted my writers open stage

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday night I hosted as usual my weekly Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel.

E.G. Marshall

            On Wednesday morning I memorized the second verse of “L'année à lenvers” (The Year in Reverse) by Boris Vian. 

            I copied the Vizard transcription of the video for “Notre Derniere Chance” (Our Final Chance) by Serge Gainsbourg but the text doesn’t seem to fit the audio when I sing along. I tried another free transcription app but for some stupid reason it decided to translate the audio although some of the text it gave is in French. I’ll try to find a better transcription app tomorrow. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the last of two sessions and it was in tune pretty much from the start. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic guitar. 

            I weighed 86.65 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I finished mopping my bedroom floor and re-mopped the kitchen area. Then I brought in the stepladder and added a second coat of drywall compound to the northeast quarter of the bathroom ceiling and the walls that I could reach from that position. There was a lot less to do than for the first coat. On Friday I’ll probably finish all the parts for which I’ll need the ladder. I might actually have the bathroom painted before the end of summer. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. 

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

            I weighed 86.15 kilos at 17:40.

            I was caught up with my journal at 18:45.

            I worked on the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia”. The concert video continues to drag behind the studio audio and so every few words I have to delete some of it to bring it forward. I managed to synchronize “beast defends”, “itself”, “from the mirror of”, and “my patience”. Then the first chorus begins and for “wowo whoever doesn’t share our hell must be…” I’m out of view. I synchronized the concert video with the studio audio for “the” and tomorrow I’ll see how “devil” lines up. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “How to Say Goodbye to You” and “Comment te dire adieu” from September 22 to 29. On September 22, 26, and 28 I played “How to Say Goodbye to You” on my Martin acoustic guitar. On September 22 and 26 the final takes were okay. On September 28 the take at 36:00 was not bad. On September 24 I played it on my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar and the final take was OK. On September 23 and 29 I played “Comment te dire adieu” on my Gibson. On September 23 the take 48:45 was rattly but not horrible. On September 29 the final take was okay. On September 25 and 27 I played it on the Martin. On September 25 the take at 43:00 wasn’t bad. On September 27 the take at 3:30 in part B was okay. 

           I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread, with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, a sliced hot Italian sausage, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching episode 3 of The Bold Ones: The New Doctors.

            Jennifer, one of the kids in the children’s ward has leukemia. Dr. Hunter is looking into the possibility of that bone marrow transplants might be a cure and visits the nuclear research centre. He wants to find out if radiation will prevent rejection of the transplant. Suddenly there is an explosion and he is closest to the radiation, with shards of metal imbedding themselves into his body. He and Dr. Truesdale are rushed to the hospital and are given an entire ward to themselves. Dr. Stuart does the surgery and is expected to leave the operating room after being exposed to fifty rads. All other staff have to leave after five rads and be replaced. Stuart stays past fifty rads to get a shard that is close to the kidney. The shards are successfully removed but there is still the radiation exposure that has severely dropped Hunter’s blood count. This results in a night of detachment and disorientation. The next day when he is able to think again he has the idea that they can use him as a guinea pig for bone marrow transplants in order to bring his blood count back up. There are four volunteers with blood type AB who donate their bone marrow. After all four donate, Hunter’s blood count starts to return to normal. The four donors and Hunter form the Bone Marrow Club and go out to dinner every year. 

            Dr. David Craig the hospital head was played by E.G. Marshall, who never told anyone what “E.G.” stood for but his full birth name was Everett Eugene Grunz. He was one of the original members of The Actors Studio. He made his film debut in The House on 42nd Street in 1945. He made his TV debut on Studio One in 1949. He played Juror number 4 in 12 Angry Men. He co-starred in Town Without Pity and Interiors. He played the US president in Superman II. He starred in the TV series The Defenders. He was the host of CBS Radio Mystery Theatre from 1974 to 1981.

July 24, 1995: I performed at the Sopra Sotto open stage on Queen West

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday evening I performed on Jill Ann Maybe’s open stage at the Café Sopra Sotto on Queen West.

David Hartman

            On Tuesday morning I memorized the first verse of “L'année à lenvers” (The Year in Reverse) by Boris Vian. 

            I posted on my Facebook page the lyrics for “Silly Kelly Kills with Her Grill”, my translation of “Turlututu Capot Pointu” by Serge Gainsbourg. I searched for the next Gainsbourg song that never got translated in my Gainsbourg project because the French text was not available. Still in the 1969 file I found “Notre Derniere Chance” (Our Final Chance) for which I had a set of lyrics. There is a video for the song on Daily Motion and I tried to sing along with my text but it seemed incomplete. I tried to copy the Daily Motion link into Vizard’s transcription app but it said it was an invalid link. So I used ClipGrab to download the Daily Motion video and then uploaded it from my computer to Vizard. It gave me a transcript of which I took a screen shot and made a jpg. I could see then that I must have tried to transcribe the lyrics a few years ago from the Daily Motion video and of course got them wrong. Tomorrow I’ll transcribe the proper lyrics from the jpg. and then start learning the proper song. Now that I’ve downloaded the video I might as well upload it to YouTube so I’ll have a YouTube video to post when I publish my translation. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions and it needed tuning at first but stayed there through the session. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I mopped half of the bedroom floor, all of the living room, the kitchen area and the bathroom. But the water was pretty dirty by the time I started doing the kitchen and so after I was finished I walked over to the hardware store to buy some more Murphy’s wood soap. I also looked for organic insecticides to kill bedbugs. I specifically wanted something that contained beauveria bassiana, the bug killing fungus but they didn’t have it. It looks like I’ll need to buy it online. I settled on a spray can of a diatomaceous earth product specifically made to kill bedbugs. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 86.2 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up with my journal at 18:30. 

            I worked on the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia”. The concert video continues to drag behind the studio audio and so every few words I have to delete some of it to bring it forward. I managed to synchronize “I’m”, “riddled”, “with accusations”, “as the writhing”, “blinded”, and “beast”. I’ll probably have the concert video and the studio audio for all of the second verse lined up tomorrow. 

            I reviewed the videos of my song practice performances of “How to Say Goodbye to You” and “Comment te dire adieu” from September 14 to 21. I played “How to Say Goodbye to You” on my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric on September 14, 18, and 20. On September 14 the take at 59:30 was rattly and the Gibson was out of tune at the end. On September 18 and September 20 the final takes were okay. On September 16 I played it on my Martin Road Series acoustic guitar and the take at 39:15 was okay. I played “Comment te dire adieu” with my Martin on September 15 and 21. On September 15 the take at 33:15 was good. On September 21 the take at 50:00 was not bad. On September 17 and 19 I played it on my Gibson. On September 17 I fumbled the take at 0:45 in part C and I just played till the end without a retake. On September 19 the take at 3:30 in part B didn’t sound horrible. 

            I grilled three chicken legs and had one with a potato and gravy while watching episode 2 of The Bold Ones: The New Doctors. 

            Casey Woods collapses at work and is rushed to the hospital. Meanwhile Chief of Medicine Dr. Paul Hunter announces that he and Dr. Ralph Simpson want to build a tactile vision substitution system. The next day Hunter meets Casey and hears that yesterday she had some vision impairment but none today. After observing that she is thirsty all the time he keeps her in for further tests. Hunter and Simpson present their theory to the hospital head Dr. Craig. Hunter says that Benjamin Franklin came up with the basic idea, although I can’t find any reference to that. The idea is that a camera is used to replace the blind eye. The camera is hooked up to a sensory area in contact with the brain and transmits impulses to it. They plan to convert the visual images in the camera to electrical impulses that will cause duplicates of the images to be lightly pressed onto the skin of the subject’s back and if the brain recognizes the images then the subject will have pseudo vision. Eventually it could be miniaturized so the blind can see. Craig has no money to fund the project but gives them a room in the basement. Hunter checks on Casey again and he notices she is having slight vision problems. He has Dr. Stuart take some pictures of her brain. Hunter and Simpson acquire a barber’s chair which will serve as the retina of their mechanical eye. Stuart finds a growth in Casey’s brain and so they need to operate. The growth is putting pressure on her pituitary gland, which is why she’s been so thirsty. But it’s also putting pressure on the junction of her eye nerves. They are able to save her life by removing the tumour but the result is that she is now blind. Hunter and Simpson acquire a TV camera and now they can experiment with their mechanical eye. Hunter puts on a blindfold and is able to discern simple shapes from the images being projected on his back. Ralph’s son is blind and they now try it on him but it doesn’t work because he’s been blind from birth and doesn’t have the same kind of spatial awareness as someone who is born sighted. They try it on Casey and it works. This system was new when they wrote it into the show. I remember seeing a similar story on TV when I was a kid. I don’t remember this particular series but the idea of projecting images on a blind person’s back was a major part of the story. 

            Hunter was played by David Hartman, who was a musician and a high school baseball star who turned down an athletic scholarship to study Economics. But in college he started working in radio and television. He worked in summer stock theatre. His screen debut was in Coronet Blue. He appeared in 27 episodes of The Virginian. He co-starred in The New Doctors, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe. He starred in The Island at the Top of the World. He starred in the TV series Lucas Tanner. In 1975 he was hired as the male anchor of Good Morning America. He stayed on for 11 years, giving over 12,000 interviews. He hosted documentaries for Discovery and starred in the doc series Walking Tour for which he won several Emmys.