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.