Beautiful Lies

            On Thursday morning I finished memorizing “Calypso Blues” by Boris Vian. I did an initial search for the chords but none showed up. They may be there under the alternative title for the song “J'ai trop de boulot' (I've Too Much Labour). I'll try again tomorrow. 

            I worked out the chords for the chorus of “Ciel de plomb” (The Sky is Leaden) by Serge Gainsbourg. The rest of the song should fall into place now. 

            I weighed 88.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            Today was laundry day, so in the late morning I headed over to the laundromat. While my stuff was in the washer I rode to Freshco where I bought eight bags of green grapes, a pint of strawberries, a half pint of raspberries, kettle chips, canned peaches, Greek yogourt, a jar of honey and a box of spoon size shredded wheat. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos before lunch. I had kettle chips, salsa and yogourt. 

            I got the mark back for my final Brit Lit 2 essay and I got an A. My TA, Carson Hammond’s main comment was:

            “In this well-written essay, you deconstruct Eliot's theory of literary realism by way of a compelling and provocative engagement with Wildean aesthetics. Throughout, you make some really insightful points about both critics in a manner that nicely brings together a more abstract discussion about literary representation with a concrete analysis of inter-class relations. As I point out in my marginal notes, much of what you are criticizing Eliot for remains highly relevant to our own time, as I'm sure you've considered: I detect among many of our own middle-class professions a similarly veiled contempt for the subjects of their paternalistic sympathies. Although there were certain moments where I think your argument would have been strengthened by the inclusion of more direct quotation from the texts at hand (instead of just paraphrase plus page number), on the whole this is excellent. Well done, Christian, and thank you for all of your thoughtful contributions to our class. Best of luck with everything ahead!” 

            I worked on my poem series, “My Blood in a Bug”. 

            I weighed 88.5 kilos at 17:50. 

            I went through my James Brown discography and deleted 175 of the songs, mostly the love songs and kept a lot of the funky stuff. 

            I colourized some more of my black and white skateboarder photo. 

            I digitally corrected some of the flaws on a 1987 photo of my ex-girlfriend Brenda. 

            I cooked in the oven the frozen chicken tenders that I’d gotten from the food bank a few months ago and had three with a potato and gravy. 

            I watched the first two episodes of the fifth season of The Andy Griffith Show. In the first story Opie’s teacher Helen Crump is teaching US history through traditional folk dances. One day when Opie’s partner is at the dentist Helen takes her place and Opie falls in love with her. He tells his father that he likes a girl who’s older than he is but won’t tell him who it is. Andy thinks the girl must be just a little bit older and he tells him that it’s all right. But when Opie spends 80 cents on a pair of silk stockings he tells him it’s not really appropriate and he'd rather he take them back. Then Opie asks Barney's advice and he says to read her poetry over the phone. Opie calls up Helen and recites a love poem that Barney is dictating to him. Helen tells Opie to come over right away. When Barney realizes it’s Helen Opie likes he's embarrassed about the poem. He tells Andy and Andy goes over to Helen's. Andy explains to Opie that Helen is his girl and Opie says he didn’t know that and wouldn't have done anything if he had. He asks if they are going to get married some day and Andy says that maybe they will. Opie says as long as she’s in the family he doesn’t care if she's his wife or his mother. 

            In the second story it’s Barney's fifth anniversary as a deputy and Aunt Bee, Thelma Lou, Floyd, Opie and Andy throw a surprise party for him. But earlier that day Andy got the bad news that the sheriff’s offices have been switched to the Civil Service and that from now on there will be a height and weight requirement for deputies. Barney falls short on both counts and so Andy comes up with a scheme. Aunt Bee is fattening Barney up with heavy meals and he has to spend three hours a day dangling from a neck harness to make himself taller. He gets the extra height he needs but then gets the hiccoughs and can’t eat. Andy gets around it when he reads that the deputy is allowed to wear his name tag on a chain under his shirt during the physical. He puts his tags on a very heavy chain and Barney passes the weight requirement.

April 23, 1991: Nancy slept on my lap in the park

Thirty years ago today

            Nancy came over with Susan late Monday night, bringing a few things and the juicer. Susan was going to take our picture together but I was in a bad mood and didn't want to. Nancy stayed over and neither of us slept very well but we did turn to face each other in the night. 

            On Tuesday morning she made me breakfast while I went to the supermarket to buy juice. I got the newspapers for free. 

            We went for a walk later so she could cash her GST cheque. 

            She slept on my lap in the park. 

            We went to Fitzgerald's where she had fish and chips and I had chili with a beer. 

            We went home and I changed my sweater for work. The job didn't last long and I was home around 19:30. 

             Nancy and I were going to take a walk before bedtime so she could try to get tired, but we had an argument about the place of birth again.

Frank Sutton

            On Wednesday morning I worked out the chords for the first verse of "Ciel de plomb" (The Sky is Leaden) by Serge Gainsbourg and all but the end of the second verse. I think all the verses basically have the same chords but there’s a repetition at the end of a couple of verses that isn't in "Stormy Weather". Plus he's added a couple more verses to his translation of “Stormy Weather" than are in the original. 

            Around midday I sanded some more of the plaster on the frame of my bedroom door. I also sanded down some of the plaster that partially covers the lower hinge and next time I’ll work on the upper. I don’t think there's a reason to be too much of a perfectionist on this project because I could really go on for years if I let myself and I don’t think the result would be that noticeable. After a bit more sanding I have to plaster a few more holes and then sand again. Hopefully I’ll be able to paint the door and frame in the next month or so. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos before lunch. I had seven saltines and old cheddar with lemonade. 

            At around 16:00 I went out to the liquor store to buy a six pack of Creemore. 

            After that I was headed out for my bike ride when I met Caesar on the stairs. He complained that my making music in the morning was keeping him awake. It's weird because in all the years he's lived above me he's never complained about noise and I've been playing and singing every morning for well over a decade. In fact I used to play at 6:00 and he never said anything. Apparently hearing loss in the elderly makes them ironically sensitive to all noise because they can’t selectively filter sounds out like a younger person can. Caesar was huffing and puffing so painfully as he climbed the stairs that it didn’t look like he'd be able to make it. He's 79 now and it's just going to get harder and harder for him to live on the third floor and function without someone taking care of him. 

            I rode to Yonge and Bloor and weighed 89 kilos when I got back. 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug.” 

            I want to move some files to my external hard drive, but I decided to go through my James Brown discography first and delete the songs I don’t want. Some of the songs are just Brown hacking his own style and it's still good but not as engaging. Other files are just recordings of his band The J.B.s cutting loose by themselves and they're great but I don't need instrumental music. I only got up to editing 1972 when it was time for dinner. 

            I've been having my eggs fried for years but my favourite style is actually poached. I've avoided poaching eggs for a long time because I've experienced the whites sticking to the bottom of the pot. But I made a poached egg with toast for dinner and had not problem with sticking. Maybe because I washed the pot while it was still hot. I had my egg and toast with a beer while watching the last two episodes of the fourth season of The Andy Griffith Show. 

            In the first story Andy, Barney and Gomer take Opie and several other boys camping. Gomer admits he knows nothing about living off the land but Barney of course is full of bombast about abilities that he doesn’t really have. The next morning Opie is missing and Andy goes looking for him, expecting Barney and Gomer to stay with the other boys. But Barney leads Gomer off to search as well and they get lost, although Barney won’t admit it. When they get hungry Barney builds an ineffectual pheasant trap and then tries unsuccessfully to start a fire by spinning a stick in a hole in a log. Meanwhile Andy finds Opie, who had wandered off to pick berries. A friend named Foley arrives with roast chickens from Aunt Bee and with bows and arrows for the boys. While Foley is teaching archery Andy goes looking for Barney and Gomer. When he finds Gomer he tells him not to let on that they are lost because Barney’s feelings would be hurt if the boys make fun of him. He tells Gomer to sneak some match heads into the hole in the log and after Barney starts the fire and goes to get wood, Andy gives Gomer a roasted chicken and says to tell Barney the trap was successful. Andy then leads them back to camp by pretending to be a lake loon. 

            The season finale served as the pilot for the new series “Gomer Pyle, USMC”. Gomer comes by the court house and announces to Andy that he's going to join the Marine Corps. Since he’d received his draft notice he has decided to enlist. Andy clearly doesn't think Gomer can make it but offers to drive him to the base. Gomer is late and too talkative and gets on the bad side of Sergeant Carter from the start. When the uniforms are delivered to the barracks they include Carter’s dress uniform. The other recruits take advantage of Gomer’s naivety and trick him into wearing the sergeant’s dress blues. Carter blows his top and makes Gomer sit with a bucket over his head. The colonel is coming to inspect the recruits and Carter is sure that when he sees Pyle he will send him home. But Andy overhears this in the bar and has a talk with Carter. Andy lets slip the name of General Lucias Pyle and lets Carter's imagination run wild. Carter starts thinking Gomer must be the general’s son planted as a test and so he works personally to help Gomer prepare himself for inspection. The colonel is most impressed with Gomer and says he’d almost think he was Lucias Pyle's son if the general had ever had any children, but he didn’t. 

            Sergeant Carter was played by Frank Sutton and he continued in the role for five seasons of Gomer Pyle USMC and became famous for phrases like, "Move it, Move it, Move it!” and "I can't HEAR you!" Later he co-starred in the Jim Nabors Hour. In the 1950s he played Cadet Radisson on Tom Corbitt, Space Cadet. He also had roles on “The Edge of Night" and “The Secret Storm", which were my mother’s two favourite soap operas. He co-starred in the films, “Four Boys and a Gun” and “The Satan Bug”. He died of a heart attack at the age of fifty while rehearsing the play “Luv”.

April 22, 1991: Nancy asked me to accept her giving birth at her parents' place and I gave in again but I didn't know if I could forgive her

Thirty years ago today

            I woke up in the late morning when Nancy called to ask if I wanted to meet our midwife Bridget with her. I said "Okay". She asked me to call her and I tried several times but there was no answer. I had breakfast and worked on some projects, then I called Nancy back. She told me to keep trying to reach Bridget and she'd call me later. Nancy got an appointment for 14:00 but Bridget wasn't home. 

            She asked if I wanted to go to a movie. We looked at what was playing and she said she'd call me back. A couple of hours later she phoned to tell me that she didn't want to go because her eyes were hurting. 

            She asked me to accept her giving birth to the baby at her parents' place and I gave in again. I didn't know if I could forgive her.

Weaponized Cleavage

            On Tuesday at about 2:30 I turned the heat back on. 

            Later that morning I transcribed four sets of chords for "Stormy Weather" and placed them on the lyrics for “Ciel de plomb" by Serge Gainsbourg. One is for Etta James’s version, another for Ella Fitzgerald's and two are for Billy Holiday’s, with one simpler than the other. I’ll start trying them out tomorrow to hear which ones work for me. 

            I weighed 89.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I scrubbed all three sides of the top of my kitchen stove and a bit of the oven door. I’ll probably be able to finish the front and sides of the stove in my next kitchen session. After that the dreaded oven might take a few days of work. 

            I weighed 89.3 kilos before lunch. I had chips, salsa and yogourt. 

            In the afternoon before taking a bike ride I checked the temperature and it was five degrees. I wore two scarves, my winter gloves and my hoody under my jacket and I was comfortable riding to Yonge and Bloor. It was kind of a dreary grey day for a ride though. 

            When I got back Benji and Shankara were outside our building chatting. I told them not to turn the heat on because I’d built a snowman in my apartment and they would be guilty of snowmanslaughter. We talked about Caesar's complaints about the heat. I said that since it was going down to minus one tonight I would definitely be turning on the heat. Benji wants me to do it because he doesn’t want to be responsible when Caesar complains. Benji says Caesar should have a health care worker visiting him on a regular basis but he would have to pay and so he won’t. Shankar says Caesar told him he has close relatives not far away but they are upscale and won't visit him in our building.

            While we were talking in the chilly afternoon air a big, voluptuous black woman walked by dressed for much warmer weather in tight jeans and with weaponized cleavage. 

            I worked on editing the opening poem for “My Blood in a Bug." 

            I listened to and watched the last video of my 2020 recording project and decided there was nothing worth keeping from it that I haven’t already uploaded to YouTube. I deleted the whole thing. 

            I went through all my sound recordings of the last year and renamed the song files according to the dates they were recorded. I deleted a lot of files in which I was just testing the microphone. 

            I colourized some more of my skateboarder photo. 

            I edited some of the photos of my ex-girlfriend Brenda from 1987. 

            I had a potato and my last chicken leg with some gravy for dinner while watching two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. The first story was thematically a repeat of one from two seasons before. Barney misunderstands when he sees Andy and Helen in the jewellery store together and thinks he’s buying her an engagement ring. He tells everybody that they are getting married and then plans a surprise party for them. He gets all of Andy’s friends to chip in for a gift and Bee decides to have Andy’s bedroom renovated to so that it is more suitable for the taste of a bride. The room is wallpapered and they are given a canopy bed. When Andy and Helen walk in on the surprise and see the bedroom it is very embarrassing for Helen. Andy has to tell everyone they’ve made a mistake but that since they are all there they should have a party anyway. Andy tells Helen that when he said it was a mistake he meant for now. She says she’s not ready yet either. 

            In the second story Thelma Lou needs a ride to Mount Pilot for a dentist's appointment. Gomer offers to drive her and Andy asks Barney if he’s worried about Thelma Lou being alone with another man. Barney comments smugly that he's got Thelma Lou in his hip pocket. During the drive Gomer innocently repeats the comment to Thelma Lou and she decides to teach Barney a lesson. She asks Gomer to go to the movies with her. Barney is upset but still won’t swallow his pride. Andy explains the situation to Gomer and comments that if it were another man all he would have to do is take Thelma Lou’s advances seriously and she would go running back to Barney. Gomer decides to try to help Barney by making advances on Thelma Lou, but she overhears Gomer talking about his plan on the phone and so she decides to make advances on him. Barney looks in the window when she does so. Barney goes to Andy and so does Gomer. Barney wants to fight Gomer. Andy takes them both over to Thelma Lou but with Barney in the car. He explains to Thelma Lou that according to Gomer's upbringing, now that she has kissed Gomer she has to marry him. She takes the kiss back and Gomer accepts it even though taking the kiss back looks exactly like giving him a kiss. She and Barney make up but he still thinks he has her in his pocket.

April 21, 1991: I accepted Nancy might not live with me after the birth but still wanted the baby born at my place. She said she hated me

Thirty years ago today 

            I woke up on Sunday with Nancy's phone number repeating itself in my head but I didn't call her. I did some work and brooded about the place of birth. 

            The phone rang and it was my ex-girlfriend Brenda. We talked for half an hour about Nancy and she said she thought I was going to have a rough time with her and that she would always run back to her family. 

            I called Nancy right after and we discussed and finally argued about the place of birth again. At first I thought I heard her say she would have the baby at her parents' house and then she said she wouldn't. She said she wanted to come and live at my place before the birth but needed me to understand that she couldn't commit to living with me afterwards. I accepted that but said I still needed the birth to be at my place. She said she hated me.

George Lindsey

            On Monday morning I woke up at 2:30 and after taking a pee I took my clothes off and went back to bed. I got up at 5:00 having had about six and a half hours of sleep. I guess it was too much because my back was sore. 

            I memorized the fifth verse of “Calypso Blues" by Boris Vian. I have one more verse to nail down. 

            I finished memorizing “Ciel de plomb" (The Sky is Leaden) by Serge Gainsbourg. Since no one has posted the chords for it I looked for the chords for “Stormy Weather”, which has the same melody, and I started transcribing the ones for Billy Holiday’s version. I'll gather five sets and then decide which to use for “Ciel de Plomb". 

            In the late morning I did some more sanding of the plaster on the right bottom of the frame of my bedroom door. I made some progress and might be almost done in that section. 

            I weighed 90 kilos at lunchtime. I had chips, salsa and yogourt. 

            I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor in the afternoon. 

            When I got back I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug”. 

            I cut a video of two songs from my July 3 recording session and then deleted the rest. I just have July 4 to go. 

            I worked some more on colourizing parts of my black and white skateboarder photo. 

            I edited some photos from the fall of 1987.

            I weighed 89.3 kilos before dinner. I had a potato and a chicken leg with gravy while watching two episodes of Andy Griffith. 

            In the first story Andy and Barney are working late so they can finish the court house inventory and be free to take Helen and Thelma Lou to the dance the next night. The girlfriends drop by to ask if they want to come to the movies but they can't and so the women go alone. Andy sends Barney out to the diner to get them dinner so they can keep working. Gomer drops by with his cousin Goober. Gomer has mentioned Goober since his first appearance on the show but this is the first time he’s actually appeared. The very first thing Goober does is his horrible impersonation of Cary Grant: “Judyjudyjudyjudy!" All of Goober's impersonations are in his own voice but Gomer is impressed. Barney comes back from the diner with the Fun Girls, Daphne and Skippy in tow. He ran into them at the diner and they attached themselves to him, compelling him to give them a tour of the jail and then to drive them home to Mount Pilot. They refuse to go home without Andy driving them as well and so he gives in. But Helen and Thelma Lou are returning from their movie when they see the boys get in the car with the Fun Girls. The next day Andy and Barney get hell for it and Helen and Thelma Lou refuse to go to the dance with them. Andy is planning on spending the night home in his dejection but then Barney shows up again with the Fun Girls. Andy has no choice but to go to the dance with them. At the dance Helen and Thelma Lou are sitting with Gomer and Goober. Andy has to dance with Daphne and he requests the bandleader announce a changing partners when the music stops game. Finally Andy gets to dance with Helen and explains everything. Barney also makes up with Thelma Lou. The Fun Girls hook up with Gomer and Goober. 

            Goober was played by George Lindsey. At the end of this season Jim Nabors would be leaving the show to star in Gomer Pyle, USMC and so Goober is brought in to be the dumb hick comic relief replacement. He continued the role of Goober on Mayberry RFD and later on Hee Haw. Despite playing an uneducated yokel, Lindsey had a Bachelor of Bio-Science degree and worked as a science teacher before becoming an actor. He was apparently Gene Roddenberry’s first choice to play Spock on Star Trek. He founded the George Lindsey Film Festival in Florence, Alabama in 1998. 

            While I was making coffee there was a knock on the door and it was Benji. I said that Caesar had complained about the heat again and so the landlord had called Benji to tell him to turn it off. I said that if I was cold later I would turn it back on. 

            In the second story Andy thinks that Aunt Bee is overworked. At the same time, British butler on vacation, Malcolm Merriweather returns to Mayberry and Andy hires him to do the work so Bee can relax. Malcolm is perhaps a better cook and housekeeper than Bee, even though she is also very good. After a while Malcolm realizes that Bee is not happy because she has nothing to do. Malcolm pretends to get drunk and makes a mess of the kitchen, then he quits. Andy sees that the sherry was not drank but rather dumped down the sink, but now Bee is happy again. 

            I looked up elderly people and heat and found that Caesar’s behaviour fits a condition that the old are prone to of not being able to handle extreme changes in temperature, especially when it’s an increase. They are supposed to drink a lot of fluids to air condition their bodies so they can handle it. I felt dizzy when I went to bed.