Ed Nelson

            On Friday morning I worked out the chords for the fifth verse of “Au revoir mon enfance” (Goodbye My Childhood) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the third verse of “Le rent' dedans” (The Pick-Up) by Serge Gainsbourg. The first three lines of the fourth verse are the same as the second so there are only be three lines left to learn because the fifth and sixth verses are the same as the first and second. 

            I weighed 88.45 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the third of four sessions and it went out of tune a lot. 

            Around midday I applied the second coat of the pink colour Crazy in Love to my bathroom ceiling. I thought that I was ruining it because it looked so patchy with different degrees of wetness in the sections as I moved along. But after it dried it looked totally even. The real test will be on Sunday when I peel off the painter’s tape to see if the edges are even. I used almost all of the paint but there are a few other things I want to use that hue for and so I might have to buy another can of Crazy In Love. I don’t think I need a whole liter though so hopefully I can get something smaller. 

            I weighed 88.9 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 88.95 kilos at 18:10. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:04. 

            I finished listening to the album Energy by Operation Ivy and next on the cassette was the band’s album Hectic. I only heard the first song. 

            I grilled ten chicken drumsticks and had two with a potato and gravy while watching episode 23 of Cain’s Hundred. 

            A bail bondsman named Arnie Grote receives money from the syndicate to pay the bail of some of its employees. In some cases however, setting them free is a means of setting them up to be terminated. In one such case he pays the bail of Biggy Zink. Once Zink is released Arnie meets him in the lobby and tells him he can catch a cab easier at the 2nd Street exit even though the cab stand is at another exit. But after a couple of minutes Arnie runs after him. Before he can reach him however Peter Stull discretely comes up behind him and shoots him in the back with a silencer then casually walks away (Silencers are not nearly as quiet as depicted in movies and TV shows. It would have been obvious to bystanders that Stull was shooting Zink with a gun powerful enough to kill him). Arnie is very upset even though he knew it was going to happen. His association with the Syndicate is giving him a very upset stomach. Arnie’s assistant Kitty Bester has been working for him for seven years and is like a daughter to Arnie and his wife Rose. Kitty has dinner with Arnie and Rose once a week and they want her to move in with them. She was raised in an orphanage. She can see that Arnie is not well and keeps on urging him to take a vacation because she knows the business well enough to handle it by herself. She also knows that Howard Judlow of the Syndicate provides money for bail but she doesn’t know about Arnie’s company being used to set people up for murder. In the middle of the night Arnie gets a call to go and see Judlow, who knows Nicholas Cain is snooping around. Apparently Judlow had told Arnie to direct Zink to the 2nd Street exit because his friends would be there. Judlow thinks it's funny that Arnie claims he didn’t know about the murder. He says he’s an accessory and now he’s locked in. Arnie exclaims he’s had it but Judlow says they’ll tell him when he’s had it. Judlow says for Arnie to stay home until Cain is gone and let Kitty run the business. Kitty calls Cain and comes to see her, then she explains that Judlow just loans them money but does so cheaper than a bank and they do business within the law. Kitty runs the business for a week but it is dead. Peter Stull comes to see her often because he’s sweet on her and trying to get closer. Kitty says she knows that Judlow controls how much business they get. Stull wants Kitty to go into business with him. Stull gives Kitty her first job for Judlow to bail out a man named Miller and drives her to the courthouse. She sees Cain there talking with Arnie’s friend Eddie the blind apple seller. He tells them about Arnie directing Zink to the 2nd Street exit. Kitty goes to Stull and asks angrily how long Miller is going to live? Judlow hears about that and tells Arnie to go back to work. Kitty tells Arnie she’s going in to business with Stull because she feels like she was left on Judlow’s doorstep just like she was left on the doorstep of the orphanage because Arnie didn’t tell her everything. Cain walks in and Arnie tells Kitty that if she works for Judlow he will eventually ask her to do something terrible. Arnie tells Cain he saw Stull kill Zink and he’ll testify in court. Stull is arrested. 

            Stull was played by Ed Nelson, who studied Direction and Production at the School of Radio Technique. He became an assistant director at WDSU TV in New Orleans and narrated the TV series N.O.P.D. he started working with Roger Corman on his movie Swamp Women. He played the crab in Attack of the Crab Monsters. He produced and starred in The Brain Eaters. He starred in Devil’s Partner and The Bone Yard. He co-starred in Valley of the Redwoods. He starred in Peyton place as Dr. Michael Rossi from 1964 to 1969. He and Barbara Parkins were the only two actors to appear in the first and last episodes. He starred in the short lived series The Silent Force. He played Harry S. Truman in the touring one man show Give Em Hell Harry. He was a member of the Screen Actors Guild and was elected to the union board. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He taught acting and screenwriting at two New Orleans universities. He completes his Bachelors degree at the age of 71.