February 20, 1993: My brother asked me for a kidney but I said no

Thirty years ago today

 

            On Saturday I got up at around 11:30. I shaved and showered. I masturbated and then had breakfast. I continued to wash the insecticide off my daughter's toys. I read some old newspaper funnies and watched TV. My avocado plant wasn't looking very healthy at least on a couple of its leaves. I was thinking that I should transplant it. I drank the rest of the beer and had chips with salsa. I went out and got some Haagen Dazs. 

            I received a message from Nancy to call my brother, so I phoned him collect. He told me he was dying and needed a kidney. My sister had been tested but wasn't compatible and so he wanted me to try. I told him I didn't want to do it. He said he hoped that someday I would need something from someone and they would tell me to "go to hell."

Gayle Hunnicutt

            On Saturday morning I memorized the first twenty lines of "Fugue" by Boris Vian. 

            I ran through singing and playing "I Love You Stupid", my translation of "Je t'aime idiot" by Serge Gainsbourg. I Published it on my Christian's Translations blog. That marks the end of 1983 in my Serge Gainsbourg translation project. I moved on to his 1984 album "Love on the Beat" and listened twice to the title song. I'll start memorizing it tomorrow. There are only twelve songs to learn in the 1984 file. He was starting to slow down around this time. 

            I weighed 84.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            I went upstairs to check on David's place and saw that one of his suitcases was there, so he must have come back from Ethiopia. I didn't water his plant, since he's back, I just locked the door and won't go up there anymore. 

            I went to No Frills where I bought about four bags of grapes, dentil floss, mouthwash, salsa, two bags of kettle chips, a container of plain coconut milk simulated yogourt and another of vanilla. 

            I went to the liquor store and got a six-pack of Creemore. 

            I read a few more pages of the introduction to Frankenstein. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

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

            When I started running the water to get my usual afternoon drink I noticed the water building up at the base of the faucet. I cleared the stuff from under my sink and saw that there was a slow leak. It runs faster when the water is running. I called the landlord but my call went to voicemail. I called his handyman Yogi but he's in Niagara Falls. He told me to turn the water off until tomorrow. It still leaked for a while with the water off but stopped. I sent an email to Raja and his wife wrote back that he'll come tomorrow. I hate having him in my place. I'll have to use the bathroom tap for water until then.

            David came by and I gave him back his key. He was wearing a mask because he says he has a sore throat and he's tired from a seventeen hour flight. He seemed to appreciate the plant I gave him. 

            I weighed 84.2 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:36. 

            I finished reading the editor's introduction and Mary Shelley's introduction to Frankenstein. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a cut up beef burger, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 5, episode 4 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In this story a simply dressed girl with a back home accent shows up at the Clampett home and introduces herself as Emaline Fetty from back over Possum Ridge. Jed remembers Jake Fetty and Emaline confirms she's one of his daughters. They invite her to stay but she says she just came to say hello and that she's going to stay at the Y.W.C.A. Granny says she wouldn't stay in no place that has to be spelled. They finally convince her to stay in the guest room. 

            When Elly settles her in she asks what that thing next to the bed is and Elly tells her it's a telephone. When Elly leaves the room Emaline picks up the phone and dials a number. Suddenly she doesn't have an accent anymore as she speaks to someone she calls "Colonel". She tells him it's Rita calling and his plan is working especially because of his research on the Fetty family. 

            Elly wants to take Emaline swimming but she says she's afraid to put on the bathing suit Elly has given her. She insists on Jed coming up and telling her it's fitting. Rita has a cuckoo clock that is really a camera set up so that when Jed comes in she makes it look like he is forcing his way in. She goes into his arms like she's been grabbed and kisses him as if he has kissed her. Meanwhile the cuckoo clock keeps going off and taking pictures. 

            Next the Colonel Gaylord Merriweather Foxhall shows up at Mr. Drysdale's bank with the pictures and since Jed has briefly been an executive at the bank, the Colonel shows Drysdale a mock headline that reads "Commerce Bank Officer in Love Nest Scandal". 

            Drysdale goes with the Colonel to show Jed the pictures. Jed and Granny think they are nice and asks how much the colonel wants for them. He says $1 million. Jed finds that to be a steep price for photographs. Drysdale says, "If you don't meet his price these pictures will appear on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper." Jed says, "Well there's an idea Granny! Let's wait until tomorrow and cut them out of the paper!" 

            Jed says he'll do the right thing and since he saw Emaline in her underclothes the code of the hills rule that he has to marry her. They'll get married in Bugtussel and live in the old cabin with the rest of the Fetty family. Rita says, "You gotta be outta your skull! I'm blowin this caper" and she leaves.

            Emaline/Rita was played by Gayle Hunnicutt, who started out as a fashion model. She co-starred in "Marlowe". In 1968 she married British actor David Hemmings and in 1970 they moved to England. She co-starred in the British horror films "Fragment of Fear", "Voices", "The Legend of Hell House". She wrote the books "Beauty in Motherhood" and "Dearest Virginia". She played Alexandra in the BBC miniseries "The Fall of Angels". She played Vanessa Beaumont on Dallas from 1989 to 1991.

            

           

           For the second night in a row I found no bedbugs.

February 19, 1993: I washed my daughter's toys of the insecticide left by the exterminator

Thirty years ago today 

            On Friday I got up at around 10:00. I worked from 12:40 to 15:15 at Central Technical School and then went to the Dominion nearby to do some shopping. I bought chicken wings and salsa. I went to the liquor store and got a six of Formosa Springs Draft. I went home and relaxed. I watched TV and I assessed my latest Rook comic. It rated fairly high. In a month or so I would be back to working on my collection of Tomb of Dracula comics. I got a letter from Marie but she didn't leave a return address. I could only assume that was deliberate. I cleaned up my place and started washing my daughter's toys of the insecticide left over from when the exterminator came on Tuesday. Tom Smarda came by a couple of times last week and left a message on the blackboard outside my door. I figured I only had about twenty sections of old newspaper funnies to read before I moved on to the easier Life sections.

Carol Booth

            On Friday morning I added to my Boris Vian lyric text the transcription that Cy Strom gave me of the missing line of "Fugue". It sounds like it fits and I'll try to memorize the song at least up to that line tomorrow. 

            I finished working out the chords for "Je t'aime idiot" (I Love You Stupid) by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through the song in French. Tomorrow I'll test singing and playing my translation and then upload it to my Christian's Translations blog. 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            I dug an unused plastic planter from under the sink, put some broken bricks in the bottom, filled it with soil and planted a clip[ from my aloe vera in it. I took it upstairs to David's place, dug one of his many plates out from his cupboard to catch the drainage and put the plant in his window beside the rosemary that seems to have died. Maybe it was forward of me to do all that when I'm just supposed to be looking after his place but I felt bad about the rosemary dying under my watch. If he likes the aloe vera it will probably outlive him. 

            I finished reading the first chapter and most of the second chapter of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. I copied some parts that talk about the education of women to use in my presentation on Frankenstein by her daughter Mary Shelley. 

            I weighed 84.1 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Bloor and Bathurst. 

            I weighed 84 kilos at 17:15, which is the lightest I've been at that time in ten days. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:55. 

            I finished reading chapter 2 of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and then I skimmed through the rest of the book. I made some notes but there wasn't as much there as I'd expected to parallel women's education in the Georgian era with the creature's education in Frankenstein. It might be enough though for my presentation. I started reading the introduction to Frankenstein. 

            I had a potato with redeye gravy, and two chicken drumsticks while watching season 5, episode 3 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            Jethro is in love with the drive-in waitress Suzy, but she hates him. Jed suggests that he get some love advice from Dash Riprock. Dash advises him to get a convertible and suggests that he invite Suzy on a double date with him and Elly May. 

            Jethro gets a nice looking retro convertible, but it's in bad shape and the engine falls out when he hits the hood. I made a screenshot and searched the image and it looks like it's a 1949 Buick Roadmaster. Elly fixes it and this is the first indication after five years of the show that Elly has any kind of mechanical aptitude. 

            Jethro goes to the drive-in to ask Suzy out but she rejects him until he mentions Dash Riprock and she says she'll go. The two couples go to a drive-in theatre but the movie is a cheap monster movie. Apparently it's a real Danish film from 1961 called "Reptilicus". Lots of things go wrong. Jethro is eating and he eats through the speaker wire. He tries to put the top up and it gets stuck, blocking the view of those behind them. 

            Later Dash offers Jethro to invite Suzy over to his own bachelor pad. She comes so she can tell her friends she was in Dash's apartment but she leaves when the Swamp Monster movie comes on TV. Dash comes for a date with Elly and she gets him to pull taffy. Jane bursts in to save Elly from the clutches of Dash and when she hears Elly tell him to let go and he says he can't, Jane thinks he's being a masher and she hits him. Then she goes to save Jethro and finds him alone. Then she makes Jethro show her what Dash taught him, but he decides to eat hamburgers instead. 

            Suzy was played by Carol Booth, who was a British actor, who appeared on television over there a few times, including one episode of Coronation Street. She moved to the States and showed no trace of an accent on this episode. She played Blossom on two episodes of T.H.E. Cat, and a appeared on a few other TV shows. 

            I searched for bedbugs and found none.

February 18, 1993: I finally got my place back in order after the exterminator was there two days before

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I was supposed to see my daughter but Nancy didn't bring her down. I slept until around 11:00. I took a collage downtown and did some photocopying. I went up to Northern Secondary School to see if I could get some bookings from the art teacher and he gave me two weeks in May. I went to Henry's and bought some photographic paper. I watched TV and finished washing all the dishes. I got the place back in order after the exterminators were there on Tuesday.

Gavin Gordon

            On Thursday morning I continued to struggle with figuring out line twenty in the song "Fugue" by Boris Vian. I think I'm going to need help from a francophone. 

            I worked out the chords for the intro and the first line of "Je t'aime idiot" (I Love You Stupid) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 85 kilos before breakfast. 

            I sent an email to Cy Strom asking him to help me transcribe the missing line from Fugue. 

            I finished reading the required first two chapters of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke. He logically says that if knowledge was inherent then children would know it. I read a handout featuring Rousseau, DeMan and Terada. The second two are riffing on Rousseau's statement that a primitive man would perceive other men as giants. I read the poem "Blessed Babe" by William Wordsworth a couple of times. It's about what babies pick up of consciousness from their mothers. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Bloor and Bathurst and on the way home I stopped at Freshco. I bought five bags of red grapes, a pack of raspberries, a pack of blackberries, bananas, Bavarian sandwich bread, naan, and a jar of Basilica pasta sauce, which I use for pizza. I also got three bags of milk but this time I was smart and checked the date. The stuff in front all expired today so I dug back and got one marked March 11. I don't know how they get away with selling milk past its best before date. 

            I weighed 84.2 kilos at 17:30. 

            I got a return email from Cy Strom offering me a couple of possibilities for the missing line of "Fugue". He's living in Edmonton right now. He says the only people that walk the streets in that town are the homeless and him. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:52. 

            I read the required section of Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality. He basically gives his idea of how humanity probably evolved from the primitive stage towards having society, property and inequality. I started reading Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. 

            I had a potato with redeye gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching season 5, episode 2 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            Granny has entered her soup called "Snider's Surprise" into a soup contest but she has used Elly May's name in hopes that the publicity will land her a husband. "Snider's Surprise" wins the contest but when Jed finds out, he does not approve. He makes Granny call up the company to tell them the truth, but Granny calls Mr. Drysdale and tells him and Jed doesn't know the difference. 

            Granny persuades Jed to go hunting and meanwhile they are visited by Stafford Clark, the head of the soup company and the advertising man Roger Dickerback. Since Elly is under 21 they need Jed to sign the legal papers. Granny tries to get Drysdale to pose as Jed and sign but he is afraid of going to jail for fraud. Instead he forces his secretary Jane to disguise herself in Jed's clothes and put on a false moustache. She signs the papers but then Jed comes home and makes everybody explain what's going on. In the end Granny goes on TV as the winner of the soup contest. She tells the camera that the soup is called Snider's Surprise because it is made out of critters one can find in Snider's Swamp, like alligator. 

            Tennessee is not a natural habitat for alligators, although some have come up the Mississippi in recent years. There are maybe a dozen in the whole state. Since Granny is supposed to be from the hills she certainly wouldn't have seen alligators. 

            Stafford Clark was played by Gavin Gordon, who appeared first on Broadway and then in film mostly in supporting roles. He was once given a co-starring part with Greta Garbo in "Romance" but he lacked charisma for lead parts and was put back into supporting roles again. He was a long time companion of comedic actor Edward Everett Horton. 

            

            I searched for bedbugs and found one on the outer edge of the left side of the frame of the old exit door at the head of my bed, about halfway up. It didn't have fresh blood inside but it looked healthy because it moved quickly. I'm very disappointed because the spores are supposed to be killing these things off.

February 17, 1993: I carried my daughter while pushing her stroller

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday I got up just before 10:00 and got dressed. I worked on astrological charts until I left to meet my daughter. Her mother was a little late but she brought the stroller. I tried to fit it into a locker in the subway station but it was too long, so I struggled onto the train with it. Finally I just set it up again and pushed it while I carried her. It took a long time to get to the school but she walked most of the way while playing with the snow. The writing book that I'd forgotten in the classroom the night before was still there. We struggled back and she fell asleep while I carried her in one arm. I strapped her into the stroller when we got to the subway. I wrote this as we were pulling into Christie Station. She slept until around 18:00 and when she woke up we ate, and then played until Nancy showed up to get her.