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.