Joseph Campanella

            On Monday morning I finished working out the chords for “L'amour en cage” (Love in a Cage) by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it in French and then I’ll see if I can do the same with my translation or if it needs to be revised. 

            I memorized first verse of “Turlututu Capot Pointu”. “Turlututu” is a French interjection that means “Nonsense” or “pooh pooh”. “Turlututu chapeau pointu” means I guess “Nonsense pointy hat” but “capot pointu” would be pointy hood and the song talks about someone killing with their car. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third of four sessions but the landlord knocked about halfway through. I told him I wasn’t going to let him in because he didn’t give me proper notice. He tried to use his key but I’d jammed a screwdriver in so the lock wouldn’t turn. He banged a lot and said I couldn’t refuse him entry. He seemed to try to call the cops. The student lawyer at Parkdale Community Legal Services said the landlord has a right to make repairs as he sees fit and that I can’t refuse him entry (That’s fucked up! It seems landlords have a lot more rights than tenants). But he did offer to send me a letter addressed to the landlord. After about half an hour he sent me the letter and I also asked him to email it to the landlord: 

            Attention: Raja Sivanayam 

            Please be advised, Parkdale Community Legal Services is advising the Tenant Christian Christian of the above rental address which is subject to the Residential Tenancies Act. Christian has informed me that there are planned repairs to his residential unit that will be extremely disruptive and will cause damage to his belongings if you do not take adequate steps to protect his property. As you know, section 22 of the Residential Tenancies Act outlines a landlord’s responsibility to not substantially interfere with the reasonable enjoyment of the rental unit or the residential complex in which it is located for all usual purposes by a tenant or members of his or her household. Christian requests to know the extent of the work to be done and what you are doing to ensure that his property is safe during this time. We are inviting the Landlord to meet with Christian and work collaboratively towards a formal plan. We believe a conversation regarding possible accommodations would be mutually beneficial. If there are no reasonable attempts to fulfill these requests, and damage is caused to his belongings, we have advised Christian to file a T2 and/or T6 application with the Landlord and Tenant Board. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

            Sincerely, PARKDALE COMMUNITY LEGAL SERVICES INC. per: Vic Natola Rights Advice Program Co-ordinator, Housing Rights Please reply to: Joseph Maziarz 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos at 11:21, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since June 28. 

            I weighed 86.75 kilos at 13:35. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. On my way up Brock someone called my name. It was an old guy with a walker and it turned out to be Rob, who I knew from the spoken word scene back in the 90s. His girlfriend for a while back then was Jackie Just (aka Jackie Fox). He asked about her and I told him that we had been friends on Facebook but she unfriended me when I critiqued her posts in support of Donald Trump and other conservative figures in the US and Canada. I think he was surprised. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos at 17:45.

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

            I pretty much finished my Movie Maker project to create a video for the Christian and the Lions studio recording of Brian Haddon’s “The Ballad of My Chest Cavity”. For the line “Yeah one little sip of that beautiful sea” the studio audio was behind the concert video and so I needed to again push the video back with an outside clip. Since I sing, “Baba daba doobadap babadooee” during that line I brought in another clip of the monkeys from the 1930s cartoon “Swing Monkey Swing” and had the moving of their mouths somewhat simulate my scatting. After that all there was left to do was synchronize the concert video with the studio audio for Brian’s final singing of “would reconcile you and me”. I got them lined up by deleting some of the concert video. The concert video ends with the audio of the song but in the studio recording, a few seconds later Brian says, “Excellent” and so I made that a voice in the dark. At the very beginning of the concert video I introduce Brian Haddon and he asks if I’m ready. I struggled with figuring out how to keep the concert video audio for those parts, then realized that I could just copy the concert video for that section and paste it to the audio timeline. It automatically appeared as a wave form. Tomorrow I’ll watch the video and decide if everything is okay. I think I will add an effect to the video clip of the liver because it’s a little too brown. 

            In my “2024-10-04 Song Practice” Movie Maker project, it took about an hour but I synchronized the audio with the video. Next I’ll delete everything that comes before “Leave the Naïve Alone”. 

            It was too hot to use the stove but the chicken breast that I’d taken from the freezer to thaw in the fridge was not fully thawed and so I had to put it in the oven for seven minutes. I had it with some potato chips, salsa, skyr, and a beer while watching episode 2 of The Bold Ones: The Lawyers. 

            Jesse Ortega is on death row for murder and Brian Darrell is his lawyer trying to have the death sentence commuted before the governor. Brian’s best friend Sam Rand is the prosecutor arguing in favour of execution. Jesse maintains his innocence but does have a violent outburst in response to some of Sam’s statements about him. Brian accepts Sam’s invitation to spend the night at his place. Jesse is on his way back to prison when there is a blown tire and the police car crashes, allowing him to escape. Jesse breaks into Sam’s home and holds him and Brian at gunpoint. He wants some money so he can try to get to Mexico. Suddenly Sam’s wife Marcy comes downstairs from bed, sees Jesse with the gun and screams. While Jesse is distracted Sam throws a heavy ashtray at his head causing him to unintentionally fire his gun at Marcy and she dies. Jesse goes back to death row but then another convict who is about to be executed confesses to the murder that Jesse got the death penalty for. He provides the location of a buried box containing the victim’s valuables. Jesse is proven innocent of the original murder but now Sam wants him tried for the murder of Marcy. Brian defends him and in an unusual motion asks for Jesse to be tried by judge rather than jury because polls show the population of that state is prejudiced towards Jesse. Sam assists the prosecutor but in reality both Brian and Sam have conflict of interest and wouldn’t be allowed to try the case. Brian argues that anyone unlawfully sentenced to death has the right under natural law to resist execution. Sam is also a witness and he still believes that Jesse is guilty of the original murder. He thinks that there was collusion between the recent confessor to the murder and Jesse. During the first trial Jesse described a car from which was thrown a bag containing the evidence. It was a 1960 blue four door sedan with Texas plates. Brian has obtained a copy of the registration of a car belonging to the prisoner who recently confessed. It’s the same car that Jesse described. Now Sam is not sure that Jesse is guilty of the previous murder. Brian argues that Jesse paid for Marcy’s death by having spent four years on death row for a murder he didn’t commit. The judge sentences Jesse to life in prison. Brian argues that in that state only a jury can recommend a sentence in first degree murder cases and the judge has to comply with their decision. In this case then the judge has no right to give sentence. The prohibitions on double jeopardy foreclose Jesse being tried again. He discovered the statute before the court permitted the waiver of the jury. The judge tells Brian he might have committed a fraud on the court. The judge says statutes can be interpreted and goes ahead to sentence Jesse to life anyway and he says Brian will be placed on trial for his actions and possibly disbarred. Jesse will be able to appeal. Sam offers to defend Brian and then he thinks he’ll be able to save Jesse from life imprisonment. 

            Brian is played by Joseph Campanella, who started as a teenage sports announcer on local radio. His stage career began when he was thirty. He moved to Hollywood in 1952 and started working on television. His TV debut was on Suspense in 1952. He made his film debut in Murder Inc. He played Joe Turino on The Guiding Light from 1959 to 1962. He was nominated for an Emmy for playing Lew Wickersham on Mannix. He played Harper Devereaux on Days of Our Lives from 1987 to 1992. He was a regular as Jonathan Young on The Bold and the Beautiful from 1996 to 2005. he was the voice of Curt Connors/The Lizard on the Spiderman animated series. He played Ann’s ex-husband on One Day at a Time. He did narration for PBS. He hosted the Canadian program Science International.