Steve Earle

            On Sunday after midnight I put some more two sided carpet tape on the wall side edge of my mattress to secure the other tape where it had lifted up. I went to bed a little after 1:30 and slept fairly well after lying awake for a while without feeling any bedbugs. When I checked after yoga there were a few crawling on the wall above the head of my bed but there were more stuck to the tape. 

            I transcribed from the Boite a Chanson site a set of chords for “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian. I’ll check tomorrow to see if there have been any different chords posted and then I’ll start working them out. 

            I worked out the chords for more than half of the first verse of “Docteur Faust” by Serge Gainsbourg. I should have the first verse done tomorrow and then I think the rest of the verses will be the same. 

            I weighed 90.85 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the second of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time as usual. 

            Around midday I laid down more two-sided carpet tape on the bedroom floor next to the baseboards and also next to the bottom of the part of my desk that is closest to the bedroom. I vacuumed under my desk again. I’ll put down some more tape on Tuesday. 

            I’ve been listening to the Steve Earle discography and I’m about halfway through. The first two albums are conventionally country music but then with Copperhead Road he starts to rock a bit, with The Pogues guest starring on the record. His lyrics also became more interesting. The fourth album The Hard Way goes even further into rock and it has an interesting song called “Justice in Ontario” about a murder that happened in 1978 in Port Hope, Ontario during a biker war between The Outlaws and The Satan’s Choice. About six Satan’s Choice members are still in prison while the real murderer is free. The Ontario Provincial Police decided it was an opportunity to get rid of several nasty bikers and more important than catching the killer of another biker, so they shuffled the evidence and put the Choice members away. In another song, “Christmas in Washington”, imagine a country singer saying “Bring back Emma Goldman” the Anarchist revolutionary. His album Transcendental Blues is still country but with some songs having an Indian feel like the Beatles’ “Within You Without You”. In his Grammy Award winning album The Revolution Starts Now there’s a song from the point of view of a US soldier fighting in the Middle East, with the line, “Just another poor boy fighting a rich man’s war”. 

            He started learning guitar at the age of 11 and ran away at 14 to search for his idol Townes Van Zandt. He moved to Nashville at 19. He played bass in Guy Clark’s band and sang on his Old No 1 album. he was one of the featured songwriters in the 1976 documentary Heartworn Highways. He became the staff songwriter for the company Sunbury Dunbar. he got tired of Nashville and moved back to Texas where he started a band called The Dukes. He returned to Nashville and worked as a songwriter. His song “When You Fall In Love” was a top 20 Country hit for Johnny Lee in 1982. In 1986 his first album was Guitar Town and the title track became a top ten hit. "Copperhead Road" became an even bigger hit and a signature song. In 1996 his album Train a Comin was nominated for a Grammy. His novel I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive was published in 2011 as was his collection of short stories called Doghouse Roses. He is a Socialist and also an activist against capital punishment.

            I weighed 92.9 kilos before lunch. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

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

            I weighed 92.7 kilos at 18:05. That’s the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since I’ve been recording my weight. 

            I was still two days behind in my journal and worked on getting caught up.  

            I made two Canadian ground beef burger patties and grilled them in the oven. I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, one pf the burgers crumbled up, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching an interview with Rita Moreno about Carol Burnett. 

            Rita can’t imaging anyone having a bad word about Carol. She’s loving, generous, and very intelligent. Years after Rita guest starred on Carol’s show they co-starred in The Four Seasons, written by, directed by, and co-starring Alan Alda. It also co-starred Jack Weston and he and Rita were playing Alan’s take on Mel Brooks and Ann Bancroft. Alan did a lot of takes. This movie was his first baby as a writer and director. It was tough on the cast but still one of the most wonderful filming experiences of Rita’s life because of Carol and Jack, who are two of the funniest people alive. Rita and Jack broke up all the time while shooting scenes. Alan didn’t like it when they adlibbed their lines or started laughing and especially both. 

            During the first quarter of the movie Rita and Carol were changing costumes in the ladies room. Rita called Carol out of a stall and mooned her. She’d never done that to anyone before but she really wanted to make Carol laugh, because there’s nothing like making a very funny person laugh. She says if she could make Sid Caesar laugh she would die of happiness. However, Carol disappointed her by just saying she had a cute behind. The next location for the film was the US Virgin Islands. They all had apartments on the ground level with windows that looked out on the walkway. Every day Carol would come by at 6:00 with her assistant Sharkey, call for Rita and then they’d walk to breakfast. One morning when Carol came to the door Rita mooned her and Sharkey and this time she got them shrieking with laughter so loud they woke the neighbourhood. Rita says it gave her such nachas (pleasure).

            Rita has a character called Googie Gomez who she played in The Ritz on Broadway and in the film version. She talks in an exaggerated Puerto Rican accent and is hilariously arrogant. She still does her at random times even when she is along to make herself and others laugh. She says things like, “If it wasn’t for Barbara Streisand stealing my act I would be a big movie star!” She created the character while goofing around on the set of West Side Story. She made Carol laugh with the character and Carol used to ask her what Googie thinks of Carol Burnett. So Rita would say, “The woman can’t sing, she’s cheap, and her breasts are like two fried eggs!” 

            During the shoot Carol’s birthday came up and Alan surprised her with a big cake with whipped cream on top. Carol cut a piece and smushed it into Alan’s face, then did the same to herself. 

            Rita used to keep all of her awards in a box because she thought putting them on display was showing off. When she married Leonard Gordon in 1965 and they moved into a new house together he found the box and encouraged her to showcase them because she earned them. Now she lets her guests hold her Oscar and she takes pictures of them. When she has Oscar parties she has her guests prepare embarrassingly self serving speeches and say them while holding her Oscar. What’s great about it is that most of her friends are not show people. 

            Rita first met Carol when she guest starred on The Carol Burnett Show. She says there was no ethnic humour on The Carol Burnett Show. That’s not entirely true. There were accents and the mannerisms that come along with them.

            In acting school they’ll tell you, “Don’t act. Behave like your character.”