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.