Lorraine Gary

            On Thursday morning my arm was less sore after wrenching it while trying grab a falling mug on Monday night. It was difficult but I was able to do the exercise in which, from a seated position on the floor, I shift my weight to my left arm, then lift my behind and my left leg. Yesterday it was impossible and I’ll probably be able to do it even easier tomorrow. 

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

            I worked out the chords for the first two verses of “Notre Derniere Chance” (Our Final Chance) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 87.35 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since July 21. 

            Around midday I finished sanding the second coat of drywall compound from the bathroom ceiling. I’m done with all the areas that I need the step ladder to reach and I might have the rest done tomorrow or Sunday at the latest. Then I need to clean the dust from the ceiling and walls to prepare them for priming. 

            I weighed 87.15 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. I bought five bags of Canadian cherries, five packs of Canadian raspberries, some bananas, a box of spoon sized shredded wheat, four pork souvlakis, three bags of skim milk, and two packs of Full City Dark coffee. 

            I weighed 86.3 kilos at 18:30. 

            I was caught up with my journal at 19:37. 

            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 and fourth verses I managed to synchronize the concert video with the studio audio for “battlefield through a”. The next line in the studio audio is “crossfire” but in the concert video I don’t sing “crossfire”. This was the early stages of the song and it sounds like I’m saying “couple cops” of “crippled cops”. The next line that’s in both the audio and video is “frazzled addicts” but for the first time the concert video is ahead of the audio and it’s ahead by almost a second. I need to find a short clip to insert in order to push the concert video back. 

            In my “2024-09-27 Song Practice” Movie Maker project I continued deleting the audio, but very carefully. There are several takes of “Comment te dire adieu” but I have to find the last one in both the video and audio. I was still a few minutes off when it was time for supper. 

            I had a small potato with some pork ribs and gravy while watching the first episode of The Bold Ones: The Protectors. 

            Jack Sheehan is the City Commissioner of Urban renewal and he’s supervising the construction of a new project of homes for people with low incomes. He has taken possession of a box full of documents related to the project. The construction company is owned by Harris Conrad and the cops are investigating him and Jack for graft. Jack calls District Attorney Washburn and asks him to meet him on his yacht (Washburn is black and this takes place in California in 1969 but the first black D.A. in California wasn’t elected until 1977). When Washburn gets there he finds Jack’s dead body floating in the water. Deputy Police Chief Sam Danforth arrives. He tells Washburn that his boys are babysitting Ernest Phillips of the City Auditor’s office at his own request because he fears for his life after Jack’s death. Sam talks with Mrs. Sheehan. She knew that Jack had a mistress and accepted it. The coroner finds that Jack was suffocated and then tossed overboard. Sam puts out an APB for Jack’s mistress Sharon Taylor. Washburn asks Arnold Bartell for all of the account books relating to the project but Bartell says Jack took them. Washburn orders the construction project paused so he can see who scrambles. There is a preliminary hearing during which Washburn grills Bartell and finds Jack got him a deal on a nice car. Phillips gets a threatening phone call that causes him to back out as a witness. Conrad comes to see Washburn. He refers to Washburn’s “people” and their attitude towards the dead being more light hearted. Washburn jokes that his people used to eat the dead. Conrad hints at a bribe. He also hints that he’s responsible for Phillips backing out. Sam finds Sharon Taylor. She says she found Jack dead and then put him in the water so his wife and kids wouldn’t think he was murdered. She says Jack was crooked but just to make some extra money for him and her to have their life on the side together. She gives the money to Sam. Jack called Washburn to save Phillips. She tipped off Conrad to get Jack to change his mind but didn’t know Conrad would have him killed. Meanwhile two assassins are making their way to Sharon’s house. Sam sees the silhouette of the gunman in the window and pushes Sharon out of the way before killing the assassin. The other one is also rounded up. The construction project starts up again. Washburn buys Sam breakfast. 

            Margaret Sheehan was played by Lorraine Gary, who at 16 won a best actress award at the Pasadena Playhouse. She was offered a Pasadena Playhouse scholarship but turned it down to study Political Science at Columbia. She returned to acting later. Her TV debut was on Dragnet in 1967. She co-starred in the first two Jaws movies and starred in Jaws: The Revenge. Marty McFly’s mother in Back to the Future was named after her. She retired from acting after she married Sid Sheinberg, who was president of Universal Pictures. She still gets fan mail for Jaws. She owned New Hope Productions.