Jo Anne Worley

                                              

            On Friday morning I finally memorized the nineteenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. There are eleven lines left to learn. 

            I continued to search for images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg but only found one this time. 

            I weighed 87.55 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since December 24. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it stayed in tune the whole time. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic. 

            Around midday I finished painting the second coat of “blue bliss” on the trim that runs along the north, east, and south walls between the walls above and the tiles below in the bathroom. I think two coats will be enough and so on Tuesday I can start painting the door frame with the same colour. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but it was snowing wet snow and so I decided to only go as far as Dovercourt and Bloor. I went south to Queen and west to home. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos at 17:35. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:47. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and extracted to my hard drive side one of a tape of an early Christian and the Lions rehearsal with Steve Lowe on guitar and Arjan on bass. Steve was teaching Arjan how to play my songs on bass. This is the one I’ve been struggling with all week and the recording is just as distorted as the first time I tried. Previous tapes have not come out that way and I’ve digitized more than fifteen with this system. Maybe it’s the old tape but the recording I made with the same cassette to MP3 converter is cleaner, albeit with skipping. I can’t think of what settings to change. I’ll try recording side two tomorrow. 

            I renamed some images in my Photos folder and deleted some others. 

            I had a salad with grape tomatoes, avocadoes, mini cucumber, and lime juice while watching the penultimate episode of Captain Nice. 

            Captain Nice attends the opening of a new Apple club in Bigtown. Apple clubs are similar to Playboy clubs in this story and the owner Lloyd Larchmont is clearly a parody of Hugh Hefner. He’s so extremely self absorbed he doesn’t remember anyone’s last name. 

            Part of the club opening ceremony involves Larchmont biting into the ceremonial apple but Captain Nice stops him because he notices a particular discolouration on the platform where the apple had been sitting. He crushes the apple and sulphuric acid drips out. Larchmont is somewhat indifferent to being targeted for death and is disappointed that now he won’t know what his last words would have been. 

            He says his clubs are not a business but the fulfillment of everyone’s dreams. Everyone deserves to eat, drink, and make noise while surrounded by girls who smile endlessly no matter what. 

            Carter fingerprints all of the Apple girls. One of them tells him she’s really a magazine model and not a waitress. Carter asks what magazine she models for and she answers “The Waitress Weekly”. Another girl tells him her hobbies include phoning the weather bureau, reading the Dead Sea Scrolls and training gold fish. She prefers to date either middle North Americans or men from foreign nations. In her spare time she is studying to be a nuclear physicist (but she pronounces it as “physikist).

            Larchmont introduces the person who trains all his Apple girls and who’s been one of his closest advisors and his faithful right arm for many years: “Rusty… (and he forgets her last name)” She says “Davis”. He then introduces his attorney Lionel Barrot, “Without whom I could not have created my new project”. Lionel says, “You would have achieved greatness without anybody’s help”. Larchmont says, “You’re absolutely right”. 

            His latest project is the Lloyd Larchmont Foundation where his disciples will rise at dawn, live on roots and herbs, and study the teachings of Lloyd Larchmont. There will be only two rules: Each man must strive to achieve a oneness with the universe and each girl must kick back 50% of her tips.

            Sergeant Candy Cane is going to go undercover and become an Apple Girl, with only Larchmont knowing who she is. The mayor asks Carter to go for dinner there to hear her report. He takes his mother Esther and his father Harvey. It’s the first time we’ve seen Carter’s father out of his easy chair and out from behind his newspaper but he is behind the menu instead. 

            Candy is shy about wearing the skimpy costume. 

            Larchmont shows her a picture of his parents who made every conceivable sacrifice for his success. Candy asks where are they now and he answers, “Beats me”. 

            Lionel runs secretly to Rusty’s arms in a storage room. She tells him they can’t keep meeting like this. He asks why and she says “Because I don’t like you”. They discuss their plot to kill Larchmont. She says if Larchmont found out he wouldn’t speak to her for days. 

            Rusty says she wants to talk with Larchmont and guides him under a chandelier. Candy sees that the chandelier is about to fall and pushes him out of the way. 

            Carter wants to check on Candy but Esther convinces him that it would be better for her to do it. They’ve got Candy running the souvenir counter. She tells Esther that Rusty’s part of the plot to kill Larchmont but then Rusty steps up with a gun and takes them both to Larchmont’s apartment where they are tied up. Then Larchmont is tied up as well. Lionel rigs a tape recorder with a bomb. He presses “play” and his recorded voice counts backward from 20 and when he reaches 1 it will explode. 

            Carter goes looking for his mother and Candy. One of the Apple girls says she saw them go upstairs with Rusty. At the backward count of 10 Carter enters the room and unties everyone. At 5 he’s alone in the room. At 3 he drinks his super power formula and at 1 he shields the explosion with his body. Rusty and Lionel are arrested. 

            Rusty was played by Jo Anne Worley, who was known as the school comedienne in high school. After graduation she apprenticed with the Pickwick Players. She won a two year Dramatic scholarship to Midwestern State University in Texas and then moved west to study at the Pasadena Playhouse. She made her professional debut in a production of Wonderful Town. She made her TV debut on The Many Loves of Dobey Gllis in 1960. She made her Broadway debut in Billy Barnes People in 1961. Her film debut was as an extra in Moon Pilot in 1962. In 1966 she was starring in a nightclub act in Greenwich village when she was discovered by Merv Griffin. She appeared over 40 times on his TV show. That led to her being cast in Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. She was very popular on the show and became a star. After Laugh-In she became a star of musical theatre. She is president of Actors and Others for Animals.