Catherine McLeod

            On Friday morning I imported into Movie Maker the audio of “À poil ou à plumes” (Naked or in Feathers) by Serge Gainsbourg that I downloaded yesterday. I had most of the lyrics but in the recording there are more lyrics sung at the end and so I deleted the audio of the text I already had and just made a video of the last part with the intention of uploading it to Sonix to get a transcription. But when I listened to it again I realized that the extra lyrics are just those of the first verse repeated more slowly and more forcefully, so I didn’t need a transcription. I memorized the first verse and revised some of my translation. 

            I weighed 87.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of two sessions. It went out of tune quite a bit but not as much as usual. 

            Around midday I applied primer to the white parts of the checkerboard pattern on the Masonite that I glued in front of the kitchen counter and the stove. My plan was to walk on the black parts until the primer was dry but in one absent minded moment I stepped on one of the white squares in my black socks and got white paint on the black squares and on the wooden floor and black lint on the white squares. I had to redo some of them and try to wash off the white from the areas where it shouldn’t be. I applied primer to the kitchen side of the bathroom door. There’s still some primer left and I’ll try to use it up on Sunday. 

            I weighed 88.85 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the early afternoon since October 6. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. There was some kind of cop funeral march going on between Avenue Road and Yonge. I looked this up and it was for Hilary Weston, the former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (and apparently Galen Weston’s mother). 

            I weighed 88.1 kilos at 17:45.

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:04. 

            Yesterday I re-digitized a few times the cassette recording of my daughter and I from Christmas 1994 because there had been some skipping in the first attempt. I listened to the new copies tonight and there’s static in all of the copies and some skipping but the skipping was not in the same place as the first time and so I think I got all the audio with the extra takes. 

            I tried to review another tape but it took forever to rewind and it wouldn’t play. The next tape was marked “Master” and dated January 29, 1995. That must have been a Sedated Sunday gig at the Elmo Cambo. It also spun forever on the rewind but wouldn’t play. Finally I checked and saw that the tape is severed and the same is true of the previous one. Maybe there’s a way to fix it but it’s not something I know how to do. There are instructions online. I pulled the tapes out of the garbage so maybe I’ll try to fix them sometime. On second thought I think there must be places that can splice cassette tapes. There’s one in Thornhill at least and so I think I’ll digitize all the tapes I can and any tapes that need splicing I’ll put them aside and then look for a service that can splice them all. As far as I can see the going price in $10 per cassette. The next tape that isn’t broken seems to be of a Christian and the Lions concert. I’ll review it tomorrow. 

            In my “2024-10-08 Song Practice” Movie Maker project I deleted the audio of all the songs before “I Love You. Neither Do I”. But the audio is still behind the video because I haven’t arrived at the final take yet. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast beef while watching episode 2 of Cain’s Hundred.

            To recap, Nicholas Cain was a successful lawyer for the mob and had defended 100 members of the Organization. His main client was mob boss George Vincent. As Cain prepares to marry his fiancé Stella he has an attack of conscience and decides to give up working for the mob. He tells Vincent, who doesn’t like it because Cain knows too much. Vincent organizes a meeting of all the bosses and they vote against rubbing Cain out for now. Al and Phil Krajac are the only ones that vote for a contract. Vincent secretly visits the Krajacs and asks them to have Cain murdered. They hire Harry Deiner but he botches the job and accidentally kills Stella. Up until this point Cain had been simply willing to turn his back on all his criminal clients and move on, but now he’s been driven to turn against them and put them all behind bars. Vincent continues to deny involvement with the plot on Cain’s life and tells Nick he’ll help him find his fiancé’s killer. He organizes a meeting with the Krajacs and Deiner of which he informs Cain but does not show up himself. Al Krajac is killed and Deiner is arrested but Phil senses a trap and drives away. Cain returns to the fancy office that he had when he was a wealthy mob lawyer as he still hasn’t moved all of his things. He finds his files on the mob have all been stollen. His secretary doesn’t know who did it. Herman Hauser one of the bosses comes to see him and assures him he voted against having him killed. One of Krajac’s men tries a drive-by hit on Vincent but he escapes. Vincent calls a meeting of all the bosses from across the US and they gather in a nondescript suburban house set aside for such a purpose. Krajac’s girlfriend Bobbie comes to see Cain and takes him for a talk with Phil where he’s hold up in an abandoned house. He tells Cain he wants to kill Vincent but Cain says he should kill him in court by testifying against him. Krajac walks away and later Bobbie brings him a suitcase containing a cop uniform. Bobbie goes to the cops to tell them she heard Vincent plot to kill Cain and so they pick Vincent up for questioning. When he leaves the station Phil is standing outside in a cop uniform and draws a gun, but a cop sees him and kills him. Cain calls Hauser and arranges for him to gather the other three local bosses at Vincent’s place with Cain there. Then there proceeds a unique setup. The bosses hold a hearing for Vincent with them as the judges and Cain as the prosecutor. Cain argues that Vincent is a danger to the organization in that he tried to get rid of both him and the Krajacs in one move behind the backs of the organization. Even though they all voted against killing Cain, Vincent secretly got the Krajacs to do the hit because he knew it would be their downfall as well. A witness steps forward who had been hired by Hauser to go and talk with Deiner. He pretended to be a lawyer and got Deiner to tell him all about Vincent being behind it all. The bosses find Vincent guilty and leave, saying he’ll be sentenced later. Cain tells Vincent he has no choice but to cooperate with the feds if he wants protection. He agrees. 

            Cain’s secretary was played by Catherine McLeod, who was studying acting and doing plays in LA when an MGM talent scout discovered her in 1944. Her film debut was in The Tiger Woman. In 1946 she starred in the movie "Concerto" or “I’ve Always Loved You” in which she plays several stages of her character from the age of 18 to 45. She co-starred in That’s My Man, The Fabulous Texan, Old Los Angeles, So Young So Bad, and Sword of Venus. In the 50s films were not giving her much to work with and so she turned to theatre and television. On an episode of Maverick she played the only woman James Garner’s character wanted to marry. In the 60s she acted in several soap operas before retiring. She played the woman in the 1963 Anacin commercial who exclaims, “Mother, please! I'd rather do it myself!"