Dennis Patrick

            On Wednesday morning I memorized and translated the third verse of “Flashback” by Serge Gainsbourg. That’s half the song. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice. I think I was supposed to be playing the Kramer electric for the first of two sessions but I lost track of my schedule. I might as well play the Martin tomorrow and then get back on track with two sessions of the Gibson and two of the Kramer over the next for days. Anyway the Martin stayed in tune for most of the time. 

            I weighed 86.85 kilos before breakfast. 

            I took an early siesta from 12:45 to 14:15 because I had to leave at 14:45 for the U of T Graduate School of Periodontics. Dr. Xia did my bone graft a year ago and this was the final follow-up. He said he was very happy with the results and most of my periodontal pockets have gotten much more shallow over the last year as I’ve been doing such a good cleaning job. He brought up the subject of implants but I’d been told that implants are not an option for someone with periodontitis. He said there is a slight risk of implant failure. It would cost me about $4000 and so I would only be able to afford one every few years but I said I was interested in starting with the missing front tooth where I use the denture. He said that first I need to get a CT scan and so I’ll get a call from the CT people in the next couple of weeks. 

            I weighed 86.25 kilos at 17:30. 

            I stopped to get some raspberries and Queen Fresh on the way home. Last time I bought some raspberries in baskets and was told they were from Ontario but she put them in packages that said “product of USA”. This time I was told the ones in baskets were from the US. I took some in packages that said “product of Mexico” and asked if they are from Mexico. She seemed annoyed and said, “What it says on the package”. I said, “It says the package is from Mexico”. She confirmed testily that they were from Mexico so I bought them. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:54. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Divorce the Weather” I synchronized the concert video with the studio audio by sometimes applying the Slow Down by Half effect at least three times to small sections of the video because it was slightly ahead of the audio. That worked for the most part. I stopped when the song was about 3.5 minutes in. 

            I reviewed the video of my Martin acoustic song practice performance of “Je t’aime. Moi non plus” on October 13 and the take at 4:30 in part B was okay. I reviewed “I Love You Neither Do I” from October 14 and the take at 16:45 in part B wasn’t bad. 

            I compared the video of my song practice performance of “Je t’aime. Moi non plus” on September 9 with that of September 11 and saw that September 9 looks better. There are six more left to compare. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, basil pesto, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching episode 25 of Checkmate. 

            Comic strip artist Steve Margate writes and draws the adventures of an internationally published hero he created named “O’Hara” who seems to be based on The Shadow. He wants to kill O’Hara off but when he tries he sees O’Hara appear on the balcony in the flesh with a knife about to be thrown. Steve’s wife Edna, his attorney Jack and his assistant Andy hear him screaming and then find he’s been stabbed in his left hand with a replica of O’Hara’s knife. Jack wants Steve declared mentally incompetent but Edna is reluctant to sign the papers. Steve is an old friend of Hyatt and all three hire Checkmate for different reasons. Steve wants to be protected from O’Hara, Edna wants Steve protected from himself, and Jack wants O’Hara the strip protected from Steve. Don and Jed go to Steve’s hotel room and check out the balcony. It’s several floors up but only a couple of stories to the roof. Up there they find marks that could have been made by a grappling hook. There are theatrical flying rigs used for shows like Peter Pan and only two or three companies in the country make them. Jed checks to see how many orders they’ve had recently. An actor named Niles Parker bought a rig recently from a company in Hollywood. Jed heads there to check it out. Steve and Andy find O’Hara’s antique gun. Steve panics and while trying to remove it Andy shoots it at the mirror. Steve accuses everyone of conspiracy and starts attacking them until Jack knocks him out. Edna signs the papers to have Steve declared incompetent. Hyatt returns to San Francisco and tells Don about Steve. He was an excellent engineering draftsman and had a photographic memory. He could look at something once and precisely reproduce it on paper. Hyatt tells Steve he knows he didn’t imagine the attacks. He asks Steve to draw O’Hara as he saw him on the balcony. He realizes it wasn’t O’Hara but someone in a costume. Jed goes to see Miss Cadwallader’s model agency and she thinks he’s a model. Once he lets her know who he is he asks about Niles Parker. He’s a washed up action hero who she keeps on out of sympathy. He’s not afraid of heights and recently he's had a lot of money. He sometimes uses the name Arthur Pain. They track him down to a hotel room where they find him dead. They also find his flying rig and Don tells Jed he’s going to have to use it. He dresses in the O’Hara costume and goes on the roof. Steve is now in on the plot to trap the killer. Edna, Jack and Andy come to Steve’s suite. Hyatt opens the curtains to reveal O’Hara on the balcony. Andy is the most surprised because he’s the one who killed Parker. Steve sells the rights to O’Hara for a very large sum and never has to work again. 

            Jack was played by Dennis Patrick, who made his stage debut in a production of Harvey in Maine. He served in the navy during WWII and made training films. He made his film debut in C-Man in 1949. In an episode of Stage 13 in 1950 he was the first vampire written for television. He co-starred in Joe and Dear Dead Delilah. He played Sheriff George Patterson in the movie House of Dark Shadows but also appeared as two characters on the TV series. He co-starred in Bert Dangelo / Superstar and the soap opera Rituals. He played Jean Paul Marat on Broadway in Marat/Sade.