Norman Abbott

            On Saturday morning I finished memorizing “L'araignée du soir” (The Spider of Night) by Boris Vian. I searched for the chords and found a set on Boite a chanson (Song Box). I transcribed them for the intro and tomorrow I’ll do the rest. 

            I worked out the chords for verses 2, 3 and 4 of “Une Fille à la mer” (Woman Overboard) by Serge Gainsbourg. That’s half the song and I’ll probably have it done on Sunday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic for the second of two sessions and it went out of tune a couple of times. 

            I weighed 86.25 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went to Freedom Mobile to pay for my September phone plan. 

            Then I rode down to No Frills where there were still some Canadian cherries and so I got five bags. I also bought a basket of Canadian peaches, a Quebecois watermelon, two packs of Mexican raspberries, some bananas, two packs of five-year-old cheddar, Arm and Hammer toothpaste, petroleum jelly, garbage bags, shrink wrap, a jar of basil pesto with parmesan, a jug of iced tea, a jug of orange juice, two containers of skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. My groceries cost over $150. 

            I weighed 87.15 kilos at 14:15. I had whole wheat 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 86.5 kilos at 17:45.

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:33. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia” I continued to edit the video that I shot on August 22. I finished going through the part when I am riding on the street. Mostly I cut out the sections where there are no street people. Once I had gone full circle of the footage shot from the street in both directions, I started reviewing what I’d recorded of my ride west on the sidewalk and stopped when the video had me a little past Lansdowne. The view from the sidewalk makes a much better video than the street view. I’ve managed to cut the original one hour and three minute video down by about half. 

            I uploaded the video of my acoustic performance of “Coiffure by Eliza” to YouTube. 

            I started a “2024-09-29 Song Practice” Movie Maker project and almost got the audio synchronized with the video. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, spicy pepperoni, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the first season finale of The Brady Bunch. 

            Jan receives in the mail the anonymous gift of a beautiful locket and thinks that she has a secret admirer. She wears it all the time but one night wakes up to discover that it’s gone. Everyone in the family begins playing detective to attempt to solve the mystery, especially Greg, who notices that the typewriter that typed the address drops its “Y”s. The address is 4222 Clinton Way, City. Apparently if one mails something within a given city one does not need to name the city. Carol suspects that Mike might have sent the locket from his office and so she goes there to check out his typewriter. Meanwhile Mike does the same thing with hers at home. Neither typewriter drops its “Y”s. Greg suggests they have a reenactment of the event of the loss of the locket. Jan had discovered it was missing at 22:00 and it turns out no one was asleep at that time on that particular night. So everyone does what they were doing at that time. Carol and Mike were snuggling in bed, Alice was typing a letter to her aunt, Greg and Peter had just returned from raising the fridge, Bobby was brushing his teeth, Cindy was in the hall because she’d thought she’d heard a mouse, Jan was sleeping, and Marcia was secretly studying in bed for her English test. Then suddenly Jan sits up in bed and shouts that she remembers that she was leaning out the window to see Ursa Minor. She looks out now to find her locket is hanging from the ivy outside her window. The next day at breakfast Alice and Jan are alone in the kitchen and Alice reveals a secret. She shows Jan her typewriter and how the “Y”s drop. She says she sent her the locket because she understands what it’s like to be the middle sister. She says being the middle child doesn’t affect boys as much. Jan admits she gets jealous of Cindy for being a pampered baby and she finds Marcia is bossy sometimes. The middle girl doesn’t feel special so Alice sent her the locket that her own aunt sent her for the same reason, to make her feel special. 

            This episode was directed by Norman Abbott, who was raised by his mother and his uncle, who was Bud Abbott of Abbott and Costello. He first performed on vaudeville. His film debut was in Rio Rita in 1942. He co-starred in the Little Tough Guys movie Keep Em Slugging. During WWII he was one of the first Navy Seals. He was a radio announcer on the Colgate Family Hour and a stage manager for I Love Lucy. He directed the movie The Last of the Secret Agents. He directed 4 episodes of Get Smart, 16 episodes of I’m Dickens He’s Fenster, and the entire fourth season of Welcome Back Kotter. I’m not going to watch any more of the Brady Bunch. The stories are rarely creatively written and they are way too sweet.

August 31, 1995: I prepared for the launch of Orgasmagazine

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I probably spent the day working on preparing the first issue of Orgasmagazine for its launch on Tuesday.

George Cahan

            On Friday morning my arm felt slightly improved overall two weeks after having wrenched it when trying to catch a falling mug. 

            I memorized the fourth verse of “L'araignée du soir” (The Spider of Night) by Boris Vian. There is one verse left and I may have it done tomorrow. 

            I worked out the chords for the intro and the first verse of “Une Fille à la mer” (Woman Overboard) by Serge Gainsbourg. I think the rest of the chords will have the same pattern but I’ll find out tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the first of four sessions and the B string went out of tune a few times. 

            I weighed 86.75 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I used up the rest of the paint in the first can of primer and finished applying the second coat to the door frame. There wasn’t enough to do the bathroom side of the door and so I opened the new can. I should have gotten the guy at the hardware store to shake it, because I spent quite a bit of time stirring it. Some parts of the door will definitely need a third coat. I’ll start applying the final coat to the ceiling and upper walls on Sunday. 

            I weighed 86.25 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 86.25 kilos at 17:56. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:49. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia” I continued to edit the video I shot on August 22. I cut out the parts that have a green glare from the sun in the lens when I’m riding eastward from Cowan to Dufferin. After that I’m riding west and there’s no glare westbound but I plan to edit out most of the video that doesn’t show street people. I stopped editing for the night when in the video I was at Noble and Queen. 

            In my “2024-09-06 Song Practice” Movie Maker project I found the final take of the acoustic version of “Coiffure by Eliza” and deleted everything before. I created a “Coiffure by Eliza” Movie Maker project and deleted all of the songs that follow. I adjusted the studio audio to concert video sound balance, added a fade to black, and converted the video to grey scale. I published the movie and collected a few screen shots. Tomorrow I’ll upload it to YouTube. 

            I had a potato with gravy and three pork ribs while watching the penultimate episode of the first season of The Brady Bunch. 

            Mike has been coaching his three sons in baseball to prepare them for little league tryouts. Meanwhile Carol is helping Marcia earn her Girl Scout nature badge while at the same time watching out for Jan and Cindy. Mike and Carol each complain to the other about how difficult their day was and each says the other’s day sounds easy. They are arguing about it the next day when Alice suggests they switch roles. So Carol helps Greg, Peter and Bobby with baseball practice while Mike helps Marcia earn her cooking badge. Both parents secretly read up on their unfamiliar tasks the night before but knowledge is no substitute for experience. Carol finds baseball physically demanding and she does a lot of falling. Mike tries to multitask and winds up dropping several eggs on the floor and then slips on them. He also falls while reaching for a bowl on an upper shelf. He makes a mess that sprays everywhere when he tries to use the electric mixer. That evening both parents are sore and decide not to switch roles anymore. 

            This episode was directed by George Cahan, who directed the TV pilot for the proposed Three Stooges Show “Jerks of All Trades”. He produced the 1957 documentary TV series The Silent Service. He directed the movies An American in Buenos Ares (aka The Blonde from Buenos Ares; aka Murderers Prefer Blondes) starring Mamie Van Doren and Carnival of Crime. He directed 4 episodes of It’s About Time in 1966. He married former Miss Atlanta and actor Alix Talton in 1950 and they were together until he died of a heart attack in 1991. She died the next year of lung cancer.

August 30, 1995: I performed on the Art Bar reading series open stage

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday evening I went to the Csarda Hungarian restaurant on Elm Street. I performed on the open stage that always followed the invited poets at the Art Bar reading series

Paul West

            On Thursday morning I woke up at 5:34, having missed the alarm by over half an hour. My left ear was extremely plugged and I’d been sleeping on my right ear and so that’s probably why I didn’t hear the alarm. I rushed through yoga and gained fifteen minutes. 

            I finished memorizing “Une Fille à la mer” (A Girl Out to Sea) by Serge Gainsbourg and while I was going through it I boiled my rubber ear syringe and flushed my ears. There wasn’t a lot of wax but after the first little bit came out I kept shooting water down the canal and some darker stuff came up. My ear felt clear after that. I did the other ear too while I was at it and some wax was expelled from there as well. 

            I searched for the chords for “Une Fille à la mer” but no one had posted them. AI said it’s the same melody as the Gainsbourg song “Baudelaire”. It’s not. AI is unintelligent or AUI. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it only went out of tune once near the beginning. Tomorrow I begin a four session stretch of played my Martin acoustic. 

            I weighed 87.05 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went over to the hardware store and bought another can of primer to finish to bathroom, plus two tray liners. 

            I uploaded my Batgirl 16 video to YouTube, edited from season 3, episode 16 of Batman and featuring only the scenes with Batgirl. 

            I weighed 86.4 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. There were no Canadian grapes or cherries but I decided to give in and get some from the US. Most of them were too soft so I only got a bag each. I got a Canadian watermelon, a basket of Ontario nectarines, a pack of Canadian raspberries, some bananas, a loaf of multigrain sandwich bread, some sliced herbed turkey coldcuts, cheddar sausage, a pack of chicken legs, three bags of skim milk, two packs of Full City Dark coffee, a small jar of nouja pasta sauce, and Sensodyne toothpaste. 

            When I came home I saw a woman using a key to enter my building and saw her go to the third floor. I guess she’s a new tenant. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos at 19:00, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since August 20.

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:12. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia” I edited some more of the video I shot on Friday. I continued to remove the parts when there is a green glare in my lens as I travel east on the street away from the late afternoon sun but with the camera facing it. In this session I covered the trip from Jameson to the library. 

            I had a potato with gravy and some pork ribs while watching the antepenultimate episode of the first season of The Brady Bunch. 

            Because the six children have to share one bathroom they complain that they need a bigger house. So Mike starts looking for one and puts up theirs for sale. He finds one and announces it to the kids. But then when they begin talking with each other they all realize they really don’t want to move. Then the family starts hearing strange and spooky noises such as moaning, rattling chains, and crashing. Then when a prospective buyer comes, Mike catches Bobby and Cindy in sheets pretending to be ghosts. It turns out that all the kids have been trying to make the house sound haunted (as if that wasn’t obvious from the start that was what they were doing). Realizing that the kids want to stay, Mike takes the house off the market. 

            This story was written by Paul West, who started writing on radio shows before moving to TV. He was an early member of the Radio Writers Guild. He wrote scripts for scripts for W.C. Fields. He wrote several episodes of Father Knows Best on the radio and 63 episodes of the TV series. He wrote 12 episodes of Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and a few episodes each of many other 60s series. He wrote the screenplay for the movie Hang Your Hat On the Wind.

August 29, 1995: As always I hosted my writers open stage

Thirty years ago today

            As always on Tuesday nights I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel.

Desi Arnaz Jr.

            On Wednesday morning my arm was hurting because of movements I’d made in bed. I was however still able to pull up on the tension band almost as far as the day before. 

            I memorized the seventh verse of “Une Fille à la mer” (A Girl Out to Sea) by Serge Gainsbourg and translated it. There is one verse left and I should have it nailed down tomorrow. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and the high E string broke at the beginning of the second song. Since a guitar sounds okay without the high E I didn’t switch to the Kramer but did have to tune it a few times. I’ll change the string later. Tomorrow I’ll play the Kramer. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since May 10. 

            Around midday I applied the rest of the second coat of primer to the bathroom walls and shelves and some of the door frame. There’s still the rest of the bathroom side of the door frame and door to do. There’s a little bit left in the can but not enough. Most of the ceiling and walls are looking pretty white now but there are patches of light grey here and there and on the shelf brackets there is still some metal showing through. For most rooms what I’ve done might be enough before painting but they say the bathroom needs an extra coat of primer and so I’ll apply one more coat to the ceiling and walls and maybe a little more to the brackets. Tomorrow I’ll probably buy another can of primer. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos at 14:26. 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 86.55 kilos at 18:15. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:57. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia” I continued to edit the video I shot last Friday. In the parts of the video when I am riding east, the sun is shining in the lens and there is often a green glare. On the ride on the street from Sorauren to Jameson I edited out most of the parts with the green glare. 

            In my “2024-09-06 Song Practice” Movie Maker project I synchronized the audio with the video. I then cut out all the songs that come before “Coiffure by Eliza” but I didn’t have time to check if it was the final take. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, spicy pepperoni, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching episode 22 of The Brady Bunch. 

            Marcia keeps her secret diary hidden in the garage. In it are written her dreams of marrying Desi Arnaz Jr. Carol donates a bunch of old books to the Friend in Need Society and a driver comes to pick them up. Cindy finds Marcia’s diary and thinking it’s another old book gives it to the driver. When Marcia is searching for her diary she describes it to Cindy and learns what happened to it. She is devastated. She confesses to Alice that her journal entries are mostly about Desi Arnaz Jr. Mike goes to the charity to try to retrieve the diary but learns that all books they receive are shipped out to several second hand bookstores. Mike writes down the names of all of them and checks out some of them with no luck. Then Carol says they can split the search. She and Cindy will take half the list, while Mike and Marcia will take the other half. Marcia comes home disappointed until Alice tells her she has a visitor. It’s Desi Arnaz Jr. Alice is friends with Lucille Ball’s housekeeper and arranged for Desi to visit. Then Carol comes home with Marcia’s diary. Marcia hints she wants to be alone with Desi. She tells him she used to think Captain Kangaroo was tops but now it’s him. He gives her a kiss on the cheek before he leaves. She says she will never wash it. 

            Desi Arnaz Jr. played himself, very stiffly. His baby picture in 1953 was on the first TV Guide cover. Richard Keith, who played the TV child of his parents on I Love Lucy, became close to the family and taught Desi to play drums. At the age of 12 he co-founded the band Dino, Desi, and Billie with Dean Martin’s son Dean Paul Martin and Billy Hinsche. Desi was the drummer and in 1965 they had two top 40 hits with “I’m a Fool” and “I’m Not the Lovin Kind”. He dated Patty Duke when he was 17 and when she got pregnant they thought he was the father. He became close with the child Sean even after they learned he was not his father. He was a contestant on The Dating Game in 1967. From 1968 to 1974 Desi and his sister Lucy co-starred on Here’s Lucy. He was engaged to Liza Minelli in 1972 but she dumped him for Peter Sellers a year later. He co-starred in the films Red Sky at Morning and Billy Two Hats. He starred in the musical film “Marco”, about Marco Polo. He co-hosted Saturday Night Live with his father in 1976. He starred in the movie Joyride. He starred as his father in The Mambo Kings. From 2002 to 2007 he was vice president of the board of directors of the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Centre. He and his sister Lucie were executive producers of Being the Ricardos. He converted an old movie theatre in Boulder, Colorado into a live theatre that he made the home of the Boulder City Ballet Company.

August 28, 1995: I performed at the Café Sopra Sotto

Thirty years ago today

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

Danni Sue Nolan

            On Tuesday morning my left arm was just as sore as the day before but I could stretch the bike inner tube further upward. 

            I memorized the third verse of “L'araignée du soir” (The Spider of Night) by Boris Vian. There are two verses left. 

            I memorized the sixth verse of “Une Fille à la mer” (A Girl Out to Sea) by Serge Gainsbourg and translated it. There are two verses remaining. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of two sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my electrics. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I brought the stepladder in and finished applying the second coat of primer to the ceiling and the upper walls. What’s left for the second coat I can reach from a chair and from the floor but I don’t think I’ll be able to get it all with what’s left in the can. Tomorrow I’ll finish up what I have and then I’ll have to get another can at the hardware store. I’m definitely going to need a third coat for the ceiling and walls but I don’t want to apply a fourth, even if still looks patchy. I think the brackets of the shelves will need at least four. 

            I weighed 86.45 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but it started raining on my way up Brock. They were big, cold drops and I was getting wet and so I turned around at Dundas and went home, even though I knew it was going to stop. But it was the kind of sky you can’t trust and so it could have started up again when I was all the way downtown. Fuck that sky.

            I weighed 86.15 kilos at 17:15. 

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

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia” I continued to edit the video I shot on Friday. I finished the first run-through of editing and then started going through it again. I’ve knocked 23 minutes off of it and so now there are 40 minutes left. I don’t need any more than four minutes and probably only about two. 

            I made some screenshots of my “Élisa” video and then uploaded it to YouTube. 

            I started a “2024-09-06 Song Practice” Movie Maker project and almost had the audio synchronized with the video when it was time for supper. 

            I had a potato with gravy and three pork ribs while watching The Brady Bunch. 

            Peter is in Driscoll’s toy store when he sees a little girl climbing up a big wall shelf and notices it is coming loose from the wall. He grabs her and carries her out of the way before the shelf falls on top of her. The girl’s mother Mrs. Spencer is extremely grateful and Driscoll reports Peter’s heroism to the press. A reporter and a photographer come to the Bradys’ door and he gets his picture on the front page. At first his siblings are proud of him but it starts to go to his head and he begins bragging about it and retelling the story incessantly. Mrs. Spencer tells Peter he can have everything he wants from the toy store and he picks out several items. When they are delivered his parents tell him it’s too much and that he has to send most of it back. He tells Bobby he has to take out the garbage because heroes don’t have to. Then the paper names Peter the Outstanding Citizen of the month and awards him a plaque, plus $50. He uses the money to throw a party and invites his family and all of his friends. But none of his friends show up and his siblings don’t want to be there. It starts to sink in that he’s been getting carried away. He’s sulking in his room when Carol calls him down to show his siblings are all there for his party, plus Mrs. Spencer and her daughter. 

            Mrs. Spencer was played by Danni Sue Nolan, who made her film debut in Bandit King of Texas in 1949. She appeared in the Three Stooges film Gents in a Jam. She played the Daily Planet’s receptionist on The Adventures of Superman. She co-starred in Smoky Canyon, Flame of Youth, and Prisoners in Petticoats. She was married to producer William Asher for ten years (He later married Elizabeth Montgomery and then went on to produce Bewitched with her as the star).

August 27, 1995: I spent Sunday outdoors with my daughter

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday I spent the day playing outdoors with my daughter.

Paul Parrish

            On Monday morning I memorized the second verse of “L'araignée du soir” (The Spider of Night) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the fifth verse of “Une Fille à la mer” (A Girl Out to Sea) by Serge Gainsbourg and translated it. There are three verses left. 

            I played my Martin acoustic for the first of two sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. 

            I weighed 87.15 kilos before breakfast.

            Around midday I uploaded to YouTube my Batgirl 13 video, edited from season 3, episode 13 of Batman and featuring only the Batgirl scenes. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I wore jeans instead of shorts and had an open long sleeved shirt on over my tank top. 

            I weighed 86.65 kilos at 17:54. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:50. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia” I continued to edit the video I shot on Friday. I deleted about five minutes and there are 15 minutes left to look at. 

            In my “2024-10-07 Song Practice” Movie Maker project I deleted all the songs that come before “Élisa”. I then started an “Élisa” Movie Maker project, deleted all the songs that come after, adjusted the audio-video sound balance, added a fade-to-black effect, and published the movie. I harvested one thumbnail from the video and tomorrow I’ll do some more before uploading it to YouTube.

            I had a potato with gravy and six pork ribs while watching episode 20 of The Brady Bunch.

            Marcia has just gotten braces and now feels ugly. The school dance is in two weeks and she is going with Alan but now thinks he would be embarrassed to be seen with her. Then she thinks her fears are confirmed when Alan comes to announce he can’t take her because his parents have to go out of town that weekend. She believes he’s lying and just doesn’t want to be seen with her. Carol gets the idea to ask her friend’s son Harold to take Marcia to the dance. Then her brother Greg bribes his friend Joey, who wants help with his Physics. Then Alice pays the supermarket delivery boy Eddie to ask her. All three boys show up to see her at the same time and she feels empowered until she finds out that they’ve all been bribed. Then Alan comes to tell her his parents are not leaving after all and that he can still take her to the dance. At first she thinks he’s been bribed as well but he tells her she acts crazy sometimes but she’s still the grooviest looking girl in the whole school. That convinces her and then the night of the dance he reveals that he just got braces too. 

            One of the singers of the Brady Bunch theme song was Paul Parrish, who was also a songwriter and a solo artist. He wrote songs for Helen Reddy and Kenny Rogers among others. His first album was The Forest of My Mind and it got good reviews as a collection of sunny folk songs. His song “A Poem I Wrote for Your Hair” was featured in the 1970 movie Fools. His second album was Songs. His third album was Song for a Young Girl and the title song was popular in the Philippines. In the mid 1980s he formed a duo with Lorenzo Toppano and their albums The Royal Falcon and The Shores of This Great Ocean were hits in Europe and especially Germany.

August 26, 1995: When I finished posing for Angel's course there was beer

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I posed from 5:30 to 11:00 for the final session of Michael John Angel’s classical painting course. When we were done there was beer for everybody in the ice water in the tub.

Russ Mayberry

            On Sunday morning my left arm was slightly better than the day before. 

            I finished working out the proper text for “L'araignée du soir” (The Spider of Night) by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I can return to memorizing it. 

            I memorized the fourth verse of “Une Fille à la mer” (A Girl Out to Sea) by Serge Gainsbourg and translated it. 

            I played my Kramer electric for the last of two sessions and it went out of tune a lot for a Kramer. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I started applying the second coat of primer to my bathroom. I got a little over a quarter of the ceiling and upper walls done. I did the northeast corner and about half of the southeast corner before the paint in the tray was used up. Judging from what I got done I’m definitely going to need a third coat of primer before I colour the ceiling and walls. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the early afternoon since last Sunday. I had whole wheat saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. 

            Before preparing to leave for my bike ride I tried to carry my lazy Susan with the toiletries still on it to put them back on the top bathroom shelf but the mouthwash fell off and the cap broke, spilling about 10% of the liquid on the floor. I sponge toweled it up and tried to find an alternative cap for the mouthwash bottle so the alcohol wouldn’t evaporate. The cap of a stainless steel water bottle almost fit but I needed to fold up a sheet of paper towel and wrap it around the cap so it would somewhat fit. Because of that delay I ended up leaving for my bike ride about fifteen minutes later than usual. I rode downtown and back. 

            I weighed 86.65 kilos at 18:08. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:03. 

            I imported the video I shot on Friday into Movie Maker and copied it to the end of the timeline of my Paranoiac Utopia project. I edited it as I watched it and cut out about 13 minutes of the 63 minute video. So far the later parts when I’m shooting while riding on the sidewalk are better than the earlier parts when I’m shooting from the street. 

            In my “2024-10-07 Song Practice” Movie Maker project I synchronized the audio with the video before supper. Next I need to cut out all the songs before “Elisa”. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, pepperoni, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching episode 19 of The Brady Bunch. 

            Carol is away then Alice sprains her ankle, leaving Mike the task of getting the six children to do all the cooking and cleaning. The girls make a mess of breakfast and the boys are supposed to do the dishes but they refuse to clean up more than a normal mess and so they walk away. They try to do the laundry and soap suds floods all the way to the dining room. At dinner everything burns except for Mike’s lambchops and the salad ends up on the floor. Alice is upset about her situation because she can’t go to the meatcutters ball with her boyfriend Sam. On top of that Sam feels he has to go and take someone else because he’s on the entertainment committee. Marcia appeals to Greg about the boys doing their part and at first he repeats that the boys shouldn’t have to clean up the girls’ mess but she reminds him that dad told mom they were doing a great job when they’re not. Way too easily Greg changes his mind and they all start working together to turn things around. Somehow they suddenly all become good cooks. Mike orders some steaks from Sam and we see him handling the meat with his bare hands, which no butcher would do nowadays. The night of the Meat Cutters Ball Sam comes to see Alice instead of going to the ball and they spend a romantic evening alone together. 

            This episode was directed by Russ Mayberry who directed a few other Brady Bunch stories. He directed 7 episodes of McCloud. He directed the Disney film Unidentified Flying Oddball. He directed “Code of Honour”, which is considered to be the worst episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and was in fact fired because of it. The alien race the crew encounters was originally written to be reptilian in nature with a kind of Samurai culture. But Mayberry instead cast the aliens all from African Americans and made the alien culture one similar to 1940s Africa. The episode made the cast uncomfortable because it felt racist. Jonathan Frakes thinks it should not be in circulation.

August 25, 1995: I posed again for Angel's classical painting course

Thirty years ago today 

            On Friday I posed from 5:30 to 11:00 for Michael John Angel’s classical painting course on the third floor of 2738 Dundas Street West in the Junction. Again that might mean I worked from 5:30 to 23:00 on the 24 hour clock. The studio looked more like the living room of an old apartment above a storefront.

Herb Wallerstein

            On Saturday morning my left arm was less achy, closer to the way it felt on Wednesday but not quite. 

            I worked on figuring out the proper text for “L'araignée du soir” (The Spider of Night) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the third verse of “Une Fille à la mer” (A Girl Out to Sea) by Serge Gainsbourg and revised my translation of the second and third verses. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the first of two sessions and it needed to be unlocked and tuned near the end. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since July 30. 

            Around midday I went down to No Frills where the grapes were all from the US and so I didn’t get any. They had five bags of Canadian cherries left but one bag’s contents were too soft so I got four. I also bought a Canadian watermelon, two packs of Mexican raspberries, some bananas, a boneless rib steak from New Zealand, a bag of spicy pepperoni, cinnamon-raisin bread, dental floss, a jug of iced tea, a jug of orange juice, two containers of skyr, and two bags of Miss Vickie’s chips. 

            I weighed 86.2 kilos before lunch. July 18 was the last time I was that light in the early afternoon. I had whole wheat saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. 

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

            The Parkdale Music Crawl was going on today. It’s a much cheaper version of the Parkdale Art Festival that I used to participate in. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:38. 

            I uploaded from my camera to my computer the video I shot yesterday. The file was 23 gigabytes in MP4. That’s too big and besides Movie Maker won’t work well with MP4 and so I converted it to AVI, which knocked it down to less than 3 gigs. The conversion process took a long time and while I was waiting I got a call from Cad who said he was downstairs. 

            I went down and chatted for quite a while with him and Goldie. They’d come for the Music Crawl. Then Cad needed to use the washroom and was considering using the one at Popeye’s when I invited them to come upstairs. I learned Goldie is a painter now and she’s also giving talks at community centres. We sat at the kitchen table for a good hour and then they headed out. But then Cad was attracted to the Shambala Tibetan restaurant. I recommended the shabta (beef chili). The place was very crowded and I didn’t think they’d find a seat but they went in and squeezed into a table. I’ll see Cad and Goldie again when he and Bruce March shoot the movie they want me to play a party in, supposedly in early September. 

            It was already 21:15, which is an hour later than I normally make supper. I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, pepperoni, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching episode 18 of The Brady Bunch. 

            Tiger, the Bradys’ pet sheepdog goes missing. Alice says there has been a string of break-ins in the neighbourhood and suggests that the robbers lured Tiger away so they wouldn’t have a watch dog. Greg and Peter overhear this and go downstairs in the middle of the night to booby trap the doors with tin cans tied together and to the door knob. But Alice hears something downstairs and goes to investigate. Carol hears noises and encourages Mike to check. Alice gets caught in a booby trap. Mike puts an ad in the paper reporting a lost dog and all the kids chip in all of their allowances for a reward. They all search for Tiger and find him at Mrs. Stewart’s place. Her dog has just had puppies and Tiger is the father. 

            This episode was directed by Herb Wallerstein, who directed four episodes of the third season of Star Trek: "The Tholian Web", "Whom Gods Destroy", "That Which Survives", and the very last episode of the original Star Trek series, "Turnabout Intruder". He died at the age of 60 when he was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat by his housekeeper who claimed he attacked her first. She and her boyfriend took his body two blocks away in her boyfriend’s car, which they set ablaze. It was found two days later. She was found not guilty.

August 24, 1995: I posed all day for Michael John Angel's classical painting course

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I posed from 8:00 to 11:00 for Michael John Angel’s classical painting course in the Junction at 2738 Dundas Street West. I think it might have been all day from 8:00 to 23:00.

David P. Harmon

            On Friday morning my left arm was a little worse again after having improved considerably two days before. 

            I memorized the first verses of “L'araignée du soir” (The Spider of Night) by Boris Vian and “Une Fille à la mer” (A Girl Out to Sea) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice for the last of two sessions. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Kramer. 

            I weighed 87.15 kilos before breakfast. 

            I started my weekly filling up of the kitchen sinks and while the water was running I wanted to start preparing to apply the second coat of primer in the bathroom. First though I wanted to take some photos of how the bathroom looks with one coat. After I snapped the photos I was changing into my painting clothes when I realized I’d forgotten about the water and the sink was overflowing again. I rushed to unstop the sink and sop up the water. It had just started overflowing and there was a stream heading west to the hallway. I used a lot of sponge towels and got everything dry. I was worried that I’d caused another leak or flood down at Popeyes but when I went downstairs there was no evidence of any falling water problem. It looks like I caught my absent mindedness in time this time. Maybe the $1400 I paid in damages last time went towards a more secure ceiling. I may have to stop trying to multitask when water is filling up a sink. By the time I’d cleaned up my mess it was too late to work on any painting today and so I’ll aim for Sunday. I’ll keep the shower curtain off so I can start sooner. I weighed 87.25 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I noticed when I came back that there was a little stream of water that seems to have run from the southeast corner of the restaurant. I guess it took my sink overflow a couple of hours to work its way down through Popeye’s ceiling. It didn’t look that serious and didn’t disrupt business. Later I looked and the stream was gone. The next day though I was about to head to the supermarket and it looked like the same stream was there again. But then I realized that it was not a stream of water but a reflection in the door’s glass of a long strip tar that had been used to patch the sidewalk. So it looks like there had never been a stream of water on Popeye’s floor and so maybe my overflow didn’t leak downstairs at all. 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos at 17:50, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since August 11. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:15. 

            I put my camera on the tripod and stuck the legs firmly into the laptop compartment of my backpack with some shirts stuffed in around it. I tilted the camera down about twenty degrees, started recording, donned my backpack and then took my bike out to ride around Parkdale. I headed west and when I looked at my reflection in a store window it looked to me like the camera wasn’t tilted enough so I stopped to angle it down a little more. I rode on the street to Sorauren and then east to Dufferin, then back to O’Hara. Then I rode west again but slowly on the sidewalk to Sorauren and then on the south side I rode back along the sidewalk to Dufferin. Then I took the sidewalk back to O’Hara. I crossed the street and this time rode west on the south side to Sorauren, then east on the north side to Dufferin; then I crossed and went back to my place through the graffiti gallery that is the Milky Way and went home. I watched the video on my camera and I think the best part is from rolling through the Milky Way. I’ll upload the video tomorrow and see what I can piece together from it for my “Paranoiac Utopia” Movie Maker project. 

            I made a new batch of gravy out of the drippings from the pork ribs I grilled yesterday. I had some with the good parts of some rotten potatoes (I never saw such poor quality potatoes go to market when I was growing up on a potato farm) and three pork ribs while watching episode 17 of The Brady Bunch. 

            Carol sees Greg uncharacteristically just lying on his bed. His brothers have gone to the movies but he doesn’t feel like it. Carol takes his temperature but there’s nothing physically wrong with him. Mike discovers that Greg has failed his latest Math test even though he’s usually an A student in Math. Then Greg goes to the girls’ bedroom to ask Marcia what girls look for in boys. She says they should be rugged like Steve McQueen; dress groovy like Gene Barry; be romantic like Paul Newman; be innocent like Dustin Hoffman; be a man of the world like Dean Martin; but most importantly what is really in these days is a mustache. Greg tries but fails to grow a mustache. Alice finds a love letter that Greg wrote to someone named Linda lifting phrases from Shakespeare and Robert Burns. Carol and Mike realize that Greg is in love with someone named Linda and that’s why he’s so distracted. Carol checks the school yearbook and finds there’s not one Linda there. Then we see Greg being kept after school by his Math teacher so she can give him some personal attention and now it’s obvious that his Math teacher is Linda and he’s deliberately failing so he can be close to her. Marcia comes home with a new friend named Linda and Carol thinks that’s the one. But then Greg comes home and obviously doesn’t know her. Then Mike gets a letter from Linda O’Hara, Greg’s Math teacher, asking for a meeting and he and Carol realize the identity of Greg’s love interest. Mike meets with her and learns that her boyfriend is parked outside waiting for him. Mike recognizes him as star baseball player Wes Parker. He goes to bring him in and then Greg meets and recognizes him as well. Suddenly Greg is just as star struck as he was love struck and forgets about Linda. Wes tells him he’ll give him two tickets to a game if he gets an A in Math. The problem is solved but later we find Greg on his bed this time mooning over his substitute Biology teacher. 

            This story was written by David P. Harmon, whose first film credit was co-writing Johnny Concho in 1956. He wrote the movie Rock All Night in 1957. He wrote The Big Beat, Last of the Fast Guns, and Call to Danger. He co-wrote the movie L’intrigo. He wrote three episodes of Mannix, 12 Episodes of The Man Behind the Badge, 10 episodes of The Jane Wyman Show, 7 episodes of Studio 57, 34 episodes of Gilligan’s Island, 6 episodes of The Brady Bunch, and 6 episodes of Harper Valley PTA. He wrote the Star Trek episodes "Eye of the Beholder" and "A Piece of the Action". "A Piece of the Action" is the story of the Enterprise discovering a planet where the inhabitants have a society based on Chicago gangster culture of Earth’s 1920s.

August 23, 1995: I performed on the Art Bar reading series open stage

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday evening I performed on the open stage of the Art Bar reading series at the Csarda Hungarian restaurant on Elm Street.

David Alexander

            On Thursday morning my left arm was back to aching more after the improvement the day before. 

            I posted “The Year in Reverse”, my translation of “L'année à lenvers” by Boris Vian on my Boris Vian and my personal Facebook pages. I searched for the next Vian song on my list: “Apprenez-moi la chance”, but it’s one of the many Vian songs that never got recorded. The next song however, “L'araignée du soir” (The Spider of Night) is one I already had text for but the text didn’t seem accurate. I had previously copied the lyrics from a site but they weren’t fully correct. For instance in the YouTube audio by Magali Noel when she sings “New York”, what I have is “Nouillorque”. One can get the transcript of a YouTube file sometimes and I copied the one for this song. It got “New York” right but these transcripts are not always true either. I’ll sing along with the YouTube transcript tomorrow to hear if it fits. 

            I looked for the next Gainsbourg song on my list that didn’t get translated and in the 1971 file I found “Bathing Beauty and Sympathy” and “Une fille à la mer”. Both songs were sung only on television, the first by Jane Birkin and the second by Petula Clark. There is no recording or text for “Bathing Beauty and Sympathy” but there is a video for “Une Fille à la mer” (A Girl Out to Sea). I checked out the YouTube transcript but it didn’t look right. I tried transcribing the YouTube audio with Vizard but it arrived fragmented. I have 30 free minutes with Sonix, which seems to transcribe better but those only apply to files uploaded from one’s computer while for YouTube links one has to do an upgrade. So I used Clip Grab to download the YouTube audio and then uploaded it to Sonix. The result seems pretty accurate. I’ll start memorizing the song tomorrow. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice for the first of two sessions and the B string went out of tune quite a few times. I’m thinking the guitar might need some fret work done. 

            I weighed 86.95 kilos before breakfast. 

            At 12:05 I left for Top Cuts at Yonge and St Clair. It took me 40 minutes to get there, which is pretty good. When I walked in Amy told me that she’d be ready for me in 25 minutes but two minutes later said she could take me. When she blew the cut hair off me I opened up the back of my shirt and asked her to blow there too because I always end up with hair down my back after a haircut. 

            I rode down to Yonge and Isabella to meet my friend Brian Haddon for lunch, on me this time. We shared a pitcher of Creemore, he had the steak and mushroom pie and I had the tuna melt with fries. When we got together in the middle of July he was about to go in for a colonoscopy. It turns out they found a mass. He’s meeting with the surgeon to plan a treatment next week. He feels pretty confident everything’s going to be fine. He says he had an aunt with the same thing and she went on to live into her mid 90s. I hope everything’s fine. We might not get together in September if he has to start treatment. 

            Even though I would be heading south I walked Brian up to Yonge and Bloor. On the way a long haired guy walking with a very attractive woman called my name. I didn’t recognize him even after he started telling his wife about me being a poet and hosting the Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage. I was embarrassed but finally I asked his name. Now I was even more embarrassed because it was John Styles who was a regular at the Orgy for a long time. I’d never seen him with long hair before. He was carrying an open bag of President’s Choice Decadent Chocolate Chip cookies and handed it to me because they are decadent. I said I thought he was living in England and he says he still is but came to Toronto for a wedding. 

            At the corner of Yonge and Bloor Brian promised he’d keep me updated about his cancer treatment. It was a sad ride to Freshco where I bought three bags of green grapes because the Canadian cherries were all too soft. I also got two packs of Canadian blueberries, some bananas, a box of spoon sized shredded wheat, a lint roller, and a pack of Sponge Towels. When I got home it was well after 17:00. I weighed 86.35 kilos at 18:00. It was too late to take a siesta so I just worked on my blog while dozing off at the computer. It would have been a good evening to shoot that Parkdale video that I’ve been planning but it was dark by the time I was caught up in my journal at 20:30. 

            I grilled two racks of pork ribs and had three while watching episode 16 of The Brady Bunch.

            Carol and Mike read their horoscopes for fun and Mike’s reads “A strange woman will soon come into your life”. The next day a very eccentric woman does walk into Mike’s office. She is Beebe Gallini, a famous cosmetics tycoon who has hired Mike’s firm of architects to design her new factory. Since Mike is the best architect at the company she wants him behind the project. She says she will give him total control but it has to be pink. But then when she sees his sketches she says they don’t express her personality. She decides it should look like a powder puff and it should look fluffy. This is a very big contract for Mike’s company and so he spends a lot of time on it. He is about to take his sons fishing on a Saturday when Beebe calls and says she needs to discuss some new ideas. So Carol takes the boys fishing and gets seasick. She is starting to get jealous because of all the late nights Mike is spending with Beebe. One night Beebe comes to the Brady house unannounced and says she’s changed her mind and instead of a powder puff the factory should be a compact that opens up. Mike tries to tell her that the engineering of such a building would not work because one can’t put a hinge on a roof. Then Peter’s model plane gets away from him and hits Beebee’s head from the back, undoing her coiffeur when she is on her way to an important event. Then Bobby accidentally shoots her with a squirt gun. Beebe decides to look for another architect and Mike is relieved. 

            This episode was directed by David Alexander who directed the 1952 Broadway revival of Pal Joey, which at the time had the longest run of any revival. He directed several episodes of My Favourite Martian. He directed the Star Trek episodes The Way to Eden and Plato’s Stepchildren. Plato’s Stepchildren is the one that featured Kirk kissing Uhuru. It was the first time on US television that a black and white couple ever kissed on the lips.

August 21, 1995: I was late to host my open stage because of work

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday I posed from 17:30 to 23:00 for Michael John Angel’s painting course at 2738 Dundas Street West. As a result I was late arriving in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel to host my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage.

Burt Styler

            On Wednesday morning my left arm was feeling a lot better and I had to reach further to feel pain. 

            On my Christian’s Translations blog I published both “The Year in Reverse”, my translation of “L'année à lenvers” by Boris Vian and “Hot Off the Press” my translation of “Notre Dernière Chance” by Serge Gainsbourg. I posted the lyrics for “Hot Off the Press” on Facebook. Tomorrow I’ll post “The Year in Reverse” on my Boris Vian and my personal Facebook pages. 

            I looked for the next Gainsbourg song on my list that didn’t get translated and in the 1971 file I found “Bathing Beauty and Sympathy” and “Une fille à la mer”. Both songs were sung only on television, the first by Jane Birkin and the second by Petula Clark. So far I can’t find a recording of either of them but I’ll look again tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of two sessions and it stayed in tune. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my electrics. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since July 30. 

            Around midday I finished applying the first coat of primer in the bathroom. The metal brackets for the shelves don’t hold latex very well and screwhead sized spots of rust have seeped out from some of the screws. The bathroom looks a lot better than before but I think it’s going to need more than a second coat of primer and more than half the 3.7 liter can has been used up. 

            I weighed 87.2 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 and wore long pants for the first time this summer. It was also the first time this season that I haven’t won sandals and the first time riding my bike with my new Blundstones.

            I weighed 87 kilos at 17:50.

            I remembered I was out of beer so I put my boots back on and went over to the liquor store for a six pack of Creemore. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:18. 

            I had hoped to start shooting my video of Parkdale from my bike this evening but it was too cloudy. So I started a Movie Maker project for the studio recording of my song “Divorce the Weather” because there is both a studio recording of the song and a concert video of me performing it. The only other studio recording I have that is yet to be made into a video is “Tropic of Ulcer’ and in the same concert video I also do that song. So I’ll create a Movie Maker project for that one when I’m finished with “Divorce the Weather”. I almost had the audio and the video synchronized when it was time to stop. 

            I started a 2024-10-07 Song Practice” Movie Maker project and almost had the audio and video lined up when it was time for supper. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, a chopped New Zealand grass-fed beef burger, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching episode 15 of The Brady Bunch. 

            The boys and the girls have been collecting trading stamps since they were small in what used to be their separate families. Now that they are part of one clan they begin fighting over the stamps because each gender group has different goals. The boys want a rowboat and the girls want a sewing machine. Alice donates a drawer full of hundreds of trading stamps. The boys and girls argue over custody of those until Mike suggests they simply divide them up. When they have a hard time doing so in a simple fashion Carol suggests they just put all of the stamps together and buy one thing for the entire family. They agree but the girls can’t think of anything that the boys would approve of and vice versa. Finally they decide to let Carol choose. Carol chooses from the catalogue a grandfather clock but Mike tells her the boys would not like it. He suggests a pool table but gets the same reaction from Carol. The next morning the newspaper announces that the Checkered Trading Stamp Company will be going out of business in one month and so a decision has to be made quickly because the store might run out of merchandize as people rush to use their stamps. After negotiation the boys and girls decide to return to a choice between the rowboat or the sewing machine and to make the choice the prize in a contest between the two groups. Marcia suggests swimming but Greg reminds her she’s a swimming champion and it has to be a contest of equals. They finally decide to take turns adding to a house of cards and the first group whose member knocks the house down loses. The card structure gets very large until when Greg is adding a card, Tiger the dog jumps him and he knocks the tower over. The girls win the decision and go to the Checkered company to claim their prize. They come home with a package and the boys are not thrilled until the girls reveal that they bought a colour TV for everyone. 

            The writer for this episode was Burt Styler, who after WWII wrote for the Kate Smith radio show. He co-wrote the screenplays for Call Me Mister and Boy Did I Get the Wrong Number. He wrote 24 episodes of The Carol Burnett Show. He won an Emmy award for writing the All In the Family episode “Edith’s Problem”.

August 21, 1995: I posed for Michael John Angel

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I began a week of posing for Michael John Angel’s art classes at 2738 Dundas Street West. I worked from 7:30 to 11:00.

Lester Shorr

            On Tuesday morning I think my left arm was a little more improved. The most difficult exercise is when I loop a bicycle tire tube to each foot and then pull up with each hand while trying to straighten my arms. I was able to go a little further this morning before it hurt. 

            I finished editing “L'année à lenvers” (The Year in Reverse) by Boris Vian in my Christian’s Translations blog and only need to post a video next. 

            Also in my Christian’s Translations blog I worked on preparing “Notre Dernière Chance” (Our Final Chance) by Serge Gainsbourg for publication. I probably would have finished it if the power hadn’t gone off while I was working on “L'année à lenvers”. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the first of two sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. 

            I weighed 87 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I brought the stepladder in and worked on finishing painting the first coat of primer on the ceiling and upper walls in my bathroom. I got 3 / 4 done and then put more paint in the tray. By the time I was done with the areas that I needed the stepladder to reach it was cleanup time but I still had lots of paint in the tray and so I kept on painting. I did most of the rest of the bathroom but didn’t remove the mirror or the stuff from my lower shelf so I left that for later. I painted the tops of the upper shelves and most of the undersides. I painted the door and some of the frame before the paint in the tray ran out. I had lunch an hour later than I planned. I think tomorrow I’ll finish the areas that I left unpainted today before I take a shower. I won’t need the roller or the tray to finish the shelves and the door frame. 

            While painting I was listening to Blur and my neighbour Benji was banging on his wall. I turned it down a bit but if he would communicate like a human being we could establish the exact volume that’s comfortable for him. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos at 14:30. 

            I took a siesta at 15:30 and got up at 16:45 when it was too late to take a bike ride. 

            I weighed 87 kilos at 17:15. 

            I was caught up in 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”. I established where on the audio timeline the first of the “doo”s in the finale is sung and then worked out how much later it appears on the video timeline. I calculated the difference and deleted that much from the video timeline when I’m not in view. But the finale runs a bit longer in the concert video and so I established when the final “doo” is in the audio timeline and the video timeline, worked out the difference and cut that much out as well. I got the whole song synchronized and then saved the project as Christian Solo. Then I went back to edit the Paranoiac Utopia project but found I’d somehow deleted an important part of the video. That part however was still there in “Christian Solo” and so I resaved it as Paranoiac Utopia and it was fine. I deleted the other songs that come after Paranoiac Utopia in that project. Now I’m ready to go out tomorrow evening and shoot some video of Parkdale to add to the Paranoiac Utopia project. 

            I compared the song practice video of my September 14 performance of “Coiffure by Eliza” to that of September 2. Even though September 2 is a lower quality video it does look and feel better. I compared September 18 to September 2 and on September 18 I have a very visible strand of hair on my shirt, plus September 2 looks better anyway. I compared September 20 to September 2 and although September 2 looks better I do play the song better on September 20. I compared September 24 to September 20 and I think September 20 looks better. I compared September 30 to September 20 and though September 20 looks better I think I have more presence and play a bit better on September 30. I compared October 4 to September 30 and I think I look better on September 30 and usually when I look good I sound good. I compared October 6 to September 30. I think I’m going to upload September 30 because it’s the best one with the Gibson but I’ll see if October 6 is the best with the Kramer. I compared October 10 to October 6 and I think October 10 is a bit better. So I’ll upload both September 30 and October 10. 

            I had a potato with the last of my gravy and a chicken leg while watching episode 14 of The Brady Bunch. 

            Mike delays an important meeting to help Marcia understand her Math homework. After he leaves she sees in the paper there is an essay contest to nominate the Father of the Year. She decides to write an essay about Mike. She gets up in the middle of the night and in looking for a quiet and private place to write she goes into Mike’s study, which is off limits. When he comes home and catches her there she tells him it’s a secret what she was writing. He lets her off easy and only gives her an extra day of chores. The next day she focuses on writing the essay and puts off her chores. When he asks for an explanation she says she can’t explain and so he grounds her for one week. After he leaves she crumbles up her essay in anger but gets up in the middle of the night and continues writing it. She finishes it but then realizes that the next day is the deadline for entries. So she sneaks out to mail the letter. When Mike and Carol check on the kids later they see Marcia coming in through the window. Once again she refuses to explain and so Mike tells her that the family is going skiing on the weekend, all except for her, and she loves skiing more than anyone else. She is very upset and cries. In a few days a TV crew comes to the house and the director tells Carol that Mike has won an award but they want it to be a surprise. They set up in the home and Mike is surprised when he arrives to find he is Father of the Year and that was Marcia’s big secret for which he’d punished her. 

            The cinematographer for this episode was Lester Shorr, who won an Emmy for his work on the Medic TV series. He was also the cinematographer for the sitcom When Things Were Rotten. He was the director of photography for Take the Money and Run. He was president of the American Society of Cinematographers from 1975 to 1976.