Elena Verdugo

            On Thursday morning I blog-published "Love Child Lulu", my translation of "Lulu" by Serge Gainsbourg. Then I listened a couple of times to his song "Shanghai" while transcribing some the repetitions that weren't in the lyrics that I downloaded. 

            I video and audio recorded song practice playing the acoustic guitar. I've been alternating two days with the acoustic and two days with the electric but this time I'll play the Martin four days because otherwise some songs won't get played on both instruments. In additions to the songs that I do every day there are four songs and their translations that I play over an eight day cycle. If I play the Kramer and the Martin two days in a row each then I will end up playing the same instrument for each of those songs. So I'll play the Martin four days so it changes the instrument for the next cycle and then I guess I'll have to play the Kramer four days to change it back again and so on. I made it through Megaphor after a few failed takes, but I basically only did one take of Sixteen Tons of Dogma. I know I made mistakes but none that made me cringe. I matched my record of making it to the chorus of Baby Pop before the camera battery timed out. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            I glued down the last three pieces of fiber board to fill up the depression in my kitchen floor. While I squeezed the tube of construction glue a hole appeared at the bottom and I got the stuff all over my hands. It took several washings with soap, detergent, baking soda and rubbing with a wet cloth to stop my hands from sticking. I put two wide books of the same thickness on top of the boards and weighted them with my Jazz Chorus amplifier. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. I bought strawberries, blueberries, bananas, five bags of cherries, two packs of five-year-old cheddar, a jug of limeade, Nabob coffee, Basilica sauce, salsa, kettle chips, a lint roller, a tub of It's Not Butter, and a pack of razors. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:30. 

            I reviewed the video I shot this morning of song practice. I think I played the wrong chord in the final take of Megaphor. Sixteen Tons of Dogma went okay until a little way into the epilogue. Some of the other songs seemed to have good takes. 

            I compared the June 26, 2022 video of my performance of "Annie C's Aniseed Suckers" to the one on June 28 of the same year and I think I played it better on June 28. I compared June 28 to July 2 and I played it better on June 28. I compared June 28 to July 8 and July 8 has too much traffic noise and so I'll upload the June 28 take. I saved a copy of the June 19, 2022 song practice project in Movie Maker as "Les sucettes". I synchronized it a little more because there was too much echo, then I isolated the song. It's ready to be made into a movie and I'll upload it to YouTube tomorrow.

            In my "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" Movie Maker project I copied the lightning from the intro of the video and put it on the end of the timeline. I cut out all of the snake clips that were alternating with the lightning. I also gathered about half the lightning clips from the second instrumental section and put those at the end as well. I'll get the rest tomorrow and then figure out how I want the lightning to be arranged around the pulsing brain clips. I might try the effect of a 360 degree turn for the lightning clips and see how that looks. 

            I had a small potato with gravy and three chicken drumsticks while watching season 1, episodes 34 and 35 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Homer Bedloe returns to The Shady Rest with his son Homer Bedloe Jr. Junior has just graduated from Yale where he was voted the meanest and most hated student in Yale history. He's a chip of the old block. Homer tells Junior that he hates the Cannonball even more than he hates Junior's mother. Homer's plan is to leave Junior at the Shady Rest and have him fool the Bradley family into letting their guard down while he gathers incriminating information. Joe tells him they don't care for legal technicalities and Charlie and Floyd tell him they've never been visited by the Interstate Commerce Commission which controls the licensing of commercial vehicles. Charlie and Floyd stop the train on the railroad bridge and Junior is thrilled that he catches a fish. He also dances with the Bradley sisters and starts to change. He confesses to Kate the plan he's been following and she convinces him to be honest and nice. He tries to communicate that epiphany to his father who drags him off to their psychiatrist. 

            In the second story the President Mary Jane Hastings of Hastings Enterprises comes to the Shady Rest and rents three rooms, one to use as an office. Joe has convinced her that they have modern communication facilities but they have no phone. He plans to use Hector the homing pigeon to fly to Hank Folson's farm ten kilometers away because Hank has a phone. Mary Jane arrives with her assistant Steve who obeys her every command. She demonstrates an ability to get any man to follow her orders and it impresses the Bradley sisters. They begin to emulate her and Mary Jane enlists the girls to do some planning for her because she is scheduled to accept a chamber of commerce award in a week and she wants also to visit some old friends. The girls enthusiastically get to work helping Mary Jane. Meanwhile Billie and Bobbie's boyfriends Roger and Phil want the girls to go to the dance with them but the girls make the boys follow their orders so they will have time to fit them in. Kate doesn't like how her daughters are behaving and she blames Steve for setting an example of a submissive man. Steve confesses to Kate that he is in love with Mary Jane. Kate advises him to assert himself with Mary Jane but the result is that she fires him. Kate confronts Mary Jane who confesses that she is in love with Steve. Somehow the message seems to be that a woman in control of men is unnatural and Kate convinces Mary Jane to go after Steve before he leaves. Mary Jane makes Steve the boss of her company and promises to follow his orders from now on. Billie and Bobbie do the same with Roger and Phil. Then Kate orders Joe to get to work on his chores. 

            Mary Jane was played by Elena Verdugo who began dancing when she was in kindergarten. She appeared in her first movie at the age of six in "Cavalier of the West". She began dancing in films in her teens. She recorded the song "Tico Tico" as a singer for Xavier Cugat. After gaining acting roles in her twenties she co-starred in "Desperate Men" and "The Big Sombrero". She starred on the 50s radio sitcom "Meet Millie" and then four seasons on the TV version. She played Consuela Lopez on "Marcus Welby MD" from 1969 to 1976 for which she was nominated for an Emmy.

June 23, 1993: My daughter cried when her grandfather handed her to me

Thirty years ago today 

            On Wednesday at around 11:00 Nancy's father brought my daughter down with a note from Nancy saying I should bring her to the Eaton Centre at 17:55 with the stroller. She cried when her grandfather handed her to me and was upset for half an hour after he left. We went to the playground and played with the shovels in the sand. She met a child down the street a couple of years older who she seemed to like. We caught the streetcar at around 17:00 and she fell asleep on the way. I sat in the McDonald's in Eaton Centre with her sleeping in my arms. Nancy didn't show up by 18:00 and so I took her to work with me. She woke up when we got to the Ontario College of Art. Nancy came to the studio where I was posing and picked her up at around 19:00.

Gladys Holland

            On Wednesday morning I worked out the chords for the second verse of "Que tu es impatiente, la mort" (Death You're So Impatient) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished editing the chord placements for "Lulu" by Serge Gainsbourg in Christian's Translations. All that's left to do is find a video to accompany it before publishing it on the blog. I'll have that done tomorrow and I'll move on to learn the next Gainsbourg song on my list. 

            I played the electric guitar again for my recording of song practice. I did two takes of Megaphor and both of them might be okay. After several takes of "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" I made it through to the end but it did not end well. I also did several takes of "L'accordion" before getting it right. It's funny how a song that I can usually record in one take suddenly requires a bunch. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I glued down another two pieces of fiber board side by side into the depression in my kitchen floor. A hard cover Book of the Year fit on top of both of them and I put my concrete block on top of that. I then ripped up another kitchen tile from in front of the counter using a hammer and screwdriver. 

            I searched for "pulsing brain" and found a video of an MRI of a human brain in profile pulsing in sync with the heartbeat. I bookmarked it but I'll search a little more before deciding to use that video as part of the finale of my video for Instructions for Electroshock Therapy. 

            I weighed 85 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I spent about half an hour brushing and chiseling the smallest of my amethyst rocks that I broke off from the big one. I don't think there's much more I can do with that piece in terms of chiseling other than to even out the base and polish the crystals. 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:30. 

            I reviewed the video of today's song practice. Megaphor might be okay but Sixteen Tons of Dogma fell apart in the epilogue. Sometimes the Kramer sounds out of tune when the tuner says it isn't.

            I reviewed the videos of my performances of "Les sucettes" and "Annie C's Aniseed Suckers" from July 11 to July 15, 2022, but only July 11 got recorded and some of the chords I played sounded dissonant. So now I need to re-review the ones that I marked as okay. For "Les Sucettes" that's June 19, 21, and July 3; For "Annie C's Aniseed Suckers" that's June 20, 26, 28, July 2 and 8. I compared "Les sucettes" on June 19 and 21 from last year and June 19 looks better and has less traffic noise. I think I played it a little better as well. I compared June 19 to July 3 and I definitely played it better on June 19. Since the June 19 set is already in Movie Maker I might as well upload the take to YouTube. I'll continue to try to do a better version to upload for the future though. I compared "Annie C's Aniseed Suckers" on June 20 and 26 of last year and June 26 looks and sounds better. It's funny how it seems that when I look better I do sound better. I have three more of these to compare and I'll do that tomorrow. 

            I searched for "electrified brain" videos but found nothing and so I used 4K Downloader to download the pulsing brain video. I converted it to AVI and imported it to Movie Maker to change it to WMV, then I re-imported the changed video to my Instructions for Electroshock Therapy project in Movie Maker. I cut it down to about eight seconds. Next I need lightning but I know from past experience how hard it is to find lightning videos without watermarks and so I'll draw from what I already have. I'll copy the lightning and snakes from the beginning and edit out the snakes. Then I'll copy the lightning from about halfway through and edit out the concert video. I probably don't need it all so I'll pick the best looking lightning and then I might alter it with some effects so it doesn't look the same as where it was used before. I'll work on that tomorrow. Hopefully my plan will make an already good ending for the video sensational. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 32 and 33 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story President Norman Curtis of the C & FW Railroad tasks Vice President Homer Bedloe to take Norman's basset hound Fred to the Shady Rest to be invigorated by the love of Kate and her family. He specifically asks Bedloe because he also wants him to be transformed by the environment from meanness to goodness. He should know better. As soon as Bedloe and Fred get off the Cannonball at the Shady Rest stop, Orville Miggs comes driving up in the hot rod he's converted so it will drive on railroad tracks. In his flivver is a shaggy dog named Sheba who has attached herself to Orville but is not his pet. Fred and Sheba immediately come to life at the sight of one another. Bedloe tries to use Fred to try to ruin the Shady Rest and the Cannonball. Everybody at the Shady Rest loves Fred and he has taken to happy barking. Bedloe convinces Joe that the president won't like this habit of barking and it would cause him to shut down the Cannonball and thereby put The Shady Rest out of business. He gets Joe to spook Fred by jumping and barking at him and suddenly he's afraid of everybody. That seems unrealistic. Bedloe leaves triumphantly with a broken dog thinking Curtis will now shut down the railroad. But as the Cannonball pulls away Orville tells Kate about Fred's feelings for Sheba. Since Orville can't keep Sheba, Kate has her shipped to Norman and she's already in his office when Bedloe arrives with the suddenly happy Fred. Norman makes Bedloe walk both dogs three kilometers to buy them steaks and forces him to look happy while doing it. 

            In the second story an old school boyfriend of Kate's arrives to reminisce with her at the Shady Rest. Herbie is supposedly a millionaire but Joe thinks he's a conman. The closer he gets to Kate the more Joe plots to shut him down. When Kate plans a candlelit dinner with Herbie, Joe puts two plans into place. He tells the local man chaser Mabel Snark that there is a man at the Shady Rest that can't stop talking about how attractive she is. Then he notifies the sheriff that a confidence man is victimizing Kate. That night Orville is going through some old magazines and finds an article about the multi millionaire Herbie Grant. Suddenly Joe is dreaming about Herbie marrying Kate and him getting a share. He tries to reverse everything he's done. He stops the sheriff from arresting Herbie but then Sheriff Ragsdale is about to put Joe in jail when Mabel shows up. To put her off, Joe tells Mabel that he is the one who loves her but when she responds enthusiastically he begs the sheriff to put him in jail. Kate and Herbie decide their lifestyles don't mesh for romance but they will remain close friends. 

            Early on Herbie speaks on the phone to his French secretary Georgette. She was played by Gladys Holland, who started as a radio actor and was very good at doing foreign accents even though she was from Texas. Her parents were Belgian. Her first cartoon voice over job was narrating the 1952 animated short Madeline with a French accent. The cartoon was nominated for an Oscar. She did uncredited work for Walter Lance playing the sexy voiced French woodpecker Gorgeous Gal in "A Fine Feathered Frenzy" and Gaga Gazoo in "Belle Boys". She plated Melissa Duck in the Daffy Duck cartoon "Muscle Tussle" and Clara Hen in "Easy Peckins". She had small parts in "It Takes a Thief" and "The Man Who Knew Too Much".

June 22, 1993: In the mic I told the poet who read before me that I'd imagined she was whispering in my ear

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday Nancy brought my daughter down. I called Mike Copping at work to invite him to the poetry open stage at The Last Temptation. He said he might come but probably wouldn't. Nancy came to pick up the baby at around 22:00 and so I didn't get to The Last Temptation before 23:00. There was a street suit problematic suicidal white guy who had a lot more to say spontaneously than he did in his writing there with a gorgeous young woman of South Asian descent. She had a really sexy voice and when I got up to read after her I told her so with the microphone. I said, "I was pretending you were whispering in my ear". Later on I read a couple of pieces from my writing book that Mike picked out for me. One of them was a poem that women might have been offended by. I also sang "Me and Gravity": 

Well, I haven’t got a girl to bed 

just this three-ring circus in my head 

How can I reconcile the two 

and bring her to the show? 

Out on the battlefield of dreams 

amid countless unmarked graves of schemes 

I save the world and win the girl 

but walk away unknown 

I walked along the street today 

same route that I took yesterday 

and on and on and on and on 

from coffeeshop to barroom 

Sometimes I think I’m off the line 

one millisecond out of time 

Just enough to send my life 

careening into limbo 

Whenever I lay bare my heart

it looks like the Grand Canyon park 

and people gasp at a desert hole 

that’s too deep to believe 

They walk around, they stop and stare

they leave their garbage everywhere

but no one wants to stick around 

it’s the kind of place you leave 

Well, some have stayed a night or two 

some even stayed the whole month through 

but those few must have gotten lost 

or fallen in the well 

where some carved their names in its smooth sides

or used it for an alibi 

But one turned that hole inside out

and rang it like a bell 

Some days my feet hit the ground 

with my fate turned the right way around 

and everything slides into place 

the way it’s meant to be 

But whether in that state of grace 

or grafted to love’s glass embrace 

no surgery can split this waltz 

of me and gravity 

In the end it’s plain to see 

it’s all between me and gravity 

            I rode with Mike to Roncesvalles.

Bob Hastings

            On Tuesday morning I revised my translation of the final verse of "Lulu" by Serge Gainsbourg. I finished running through playing and singing it in English and then I uploaded it to Christian's Translations. I began the editing process of preparing it for blog publication and I should have it posted on Wednesday. 

            I returned to playing the Kramer electric guitar for song practice and recorded the session as I'll continue to do until July 15. I made it through both "Megaphor" and "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" in a couple of takes each without any major errors. When I get something that feels not too bad I feel the urge to do another take and try to do it better, but that rarely works out without making worse mistakes. I made it one song further into my set, beating yesterday's record for this year before the camera battery timed out. I think it's too much to expect that I'll record anything great on the electric guitar after years of not playing it. I've decided that once this year's recording project is over I'll alternate playing the electric and the acoustic two days each. That way I can relax and play my full set without the pressure of recording, and that way develop a more organic relationship with the Kramer so that I can record something better with it next year. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            I glued another piece of fiber board into the depression in my kitchen floor and weighted it with my Jazz Chorus amplifier. Then I ripped up most of another kitchen tile, this time in front of the stove. It's easier to use the hammer and screwdriver to tear up the tiles from the right side but I couldn't do that with the amp in the way. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos before lunch, which is the lightest I've been at that time in two weeks. 

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

            I spent half an hour chiseling and brushing the smallest of the amethyst rocks that I broke apart from one big one. I can't knock off any big chunks from this piece so I just worked on getting the pissy yellow crystals and rock off and smoothing the little bit of rock that's holding the crystals. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. 

            I reviewed the video I shot this morning. I think both takes of Megaphor were okay. I hit at least one wrong chord on "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" but it didn't sound bad. I think a lot of the songs were okay. Twenty five days left in this year's recording project. 

            I reviewed the videos of me playing "Les Sucettes" and "Annie C's Aniseed Suckers" from July 1 to July 10 of last year. For "Les sucettes" on July 1 the battery timed out before this song. On July 3 I played it okay. On July 5 there was traffic noise, it was dark and I slightly fumbled a lyric. On July 7 and 9 I didn't play it very well. For "Annie C's Aniseed Suckers" on July 2 it was one of the best of the takes of this song but one chord seemed a little off. On July 4 this song was cut off. On July 6 the battery timed out on the previous song. On July 8 it wasn't bad. On July 10 it didn't get recorded. 

            In the Movie Maker project for creating a video of my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" I synchronized the concert videos with the studio audio for the rest of the song. There were three more calls of "shock therapy" by me and after each one I inserted a clip of Brian Haddon responding with "shock therapy". After the last one I lined the video up with the audio for my final extended shout of "shock therapeeeeeee..." and the video ends with Brian sitting at the keyboard. Technically the movie looks good as it is but I need to add some visuals for a finishing touch. There's a heart-like drumbeat as I'm shouting and I'd like to maybe add flashes of a pulsing brain to the beat of the drum and a lightning effect to end on. Hopefully it won't take long to find something to complete this video so I can upload it to YouTube and show it to everybody after two years of working on it.

            I grilled eleven chicken drumsticks and had two with a potato and gravy while watching season 1, episodes 30 and 31 of Petticoat Junction. It occurred to me yesterday that Petticoat Junction is not a junction. There is only one railroad line in the show whereas a junction is where two lines or more meet. 

            In the first story Mr. Bunce from the bank is inspecting the Shady Rest to determine if it is worthwhile for the bank to support it with a loan. It doesn't look good until the wealthy socialite Clara Watkins arrives with her son Sonny. Bunce tells Kate that if Clara has a good stay and recommends the hotel to her wealthy friends then the bank would reconsider. Sonny almost immediately begins literally chasing Billie Joe. After a day or so Clara tells Kate that Billie has a peasant's body and it is needed to reinvigorate the Watkins line and so she wants her to marry Sonny. Kate tells her it's out of the question and Clara says no one rejects a Watkins in business or marriage and gets to continue a relationship. She tells Kate that she and Sonny are checking out. But then Joe begins to put on the charm and starts courting Clara. She responds positively to his advances and within a day or so a wedding is planned. Since Clara is a widow several times over Kate doesn't think marrying Clara would be healthy for Joe and so she plots against the union. She arranges for Charlie and Floyd to also court her with rumours of salesmen on the train who are also interested. Clara decides that with all of this interest from men she doesn't want to settle down. Bunce tells Kate that the bank will not support the Shady Rest but Clara informs Bunce that she owns the bank and tells him to extend the loan to this hotel. She says she wouldn't let this little playground close for a million dollars. 

            In the second story Charlie is feeling neglected. Floyd has a romance, Joe is too busy to go fishing with him, Kate has cleaning to do, Billie Joe can't play checkers with him because she has a date, and Betty Joe can't help him overhaul the Cannonball because she's going out with Orville. Suddenly Charlie decides to quit. He arranges for his replacement and as soon as he has him trained he's leaving for Broadway, wherever that is. Kate tries to tempt Charlie by tapping his other talent of giving advice. She lies to him that Orville is trying to get Betty Joe to marry him. Charlie has a talk with Orville but quickly realizes Orville has no interest in marriage and that Kate was trying to trick him. Meanwhile Charlie has been training Bill Tuttle to replace him but Bill wants to run the Cannonball according to a schedule. He doesn't want to blow the whistle to remind Fred Ziffle that it's time to feed his pigs; he doesn't want to stop and milk Maude Whipple's cow while she's away; Bersin Treadwell's chickens are spooked by the train going by too fast; plus the whole valley is confused by the Cannonball keeping a schedule. All that and the fact that everyone is mad at him for leaving makes Charlie feel needed again and so he tricks Tuttle into quitting by telling him all the other things a rural train engineer has to do like be a fireman and a midwife. He also tells Tuttle he's only thirty four. Afraid of aging beyond his years Tuttle runs away. Charlie is happy again, picks up his guitar and sings "The Hooterville Cannonball". 

            Tuttle was played by Bob Hastings, who started as a child singer on The National Barn Dance. He was the voice of Archie on the Archie Andrews radio show. He was also the voice of Jerry on The Sea Hound radio series and the voices of multiple characters on X-Minus One. He appeared on Captain Video as the brother of the Video Ranger who was played by his real life brother Don Hastings. He co-starred in The Atom Squad. He appeared eight times on The Phil Silvers Show. He played Lieutenant Carpenter on McHale's Navy, and Tommy Kelsey on All in the Family. He was the voice of the Raven on The Munsters and of Superboy and Commissioner Gordon on certain animated series.

June 21, 1993: My research showed that most of my relationships had been when Jupiter was in my 7th and 11th houses

Thirty years ago today 

            On Monday I got up at 11:30. I had an orange and a coffee, then typed a song list. I shaved, masturbated, and showered. I did some cleaning, worked on astrological research, did my laundry and then headed for work. I was late because of a streetcar derailment. The other model in the class was Yohanna and I spoke with her. I did Jupiter charts on my way home. I wrote this and then I finished the charts. I found out that most of my relationships have been when Jupiter was in the seventh and eleventh houses. I tried to call Elaine but didn't get beyond her machine.

Ned Wever

            On Monday morning I ran through singing "Lulu" by Serge Gainsbourg in French and part of my translation "Lulu Love Child" but I needed to make some adjustments in the English lyrics. I'll probably have that done tomorrow and then upload it to my Christian's Translations blog. 

            I played the Martin acoustic and video and audio recorded my song practice. I got through "Megaphor" in a couple of takes but took several for "Time of the Yo-Yo" and "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" but at least I did half decent takes of them. I made it further down my song list before the battery timed out than I have yet during this year's recording project. Not much further but it's progress. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I glued another piece of fiber board into the depression in my kitchen floor. I weighted it with my concrete block. Then with a hammer and screwdriver I tore up about a third of another floor tile in front of the kitchen counter. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I spent about twenty minutes chiseling the smaller half of the amethyst rock that I split in two a couple of days ago. It also split in two. I had hoped to get all of the amethyst free in one piece but that didn't happen. The smallest piece is almost fine the way it is but I want to knock off some of the yellow crystals and rock, hopefully without breaking off any more amethyst. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:34. 

            I reviewed the video I shot this morning. The final takes of "Megaphor" and "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" weren't bad. I had to redo "Time of the Yo-Yo" several times because my fingers forgot the chord sequence for the end of each verse. It finally came back. I did some pretty good takes of most of the songs I got through but there was a lot of traffic noise. I might try removing it in Audacity. 

            I reviewed the videos of my performances of "Annie C's Aniseed Suckers" and "Les sucettes" from June 20, 2022 to June 29. For "Annie C's Aniseed Suckers" June 20 was the best of the English ones up to that date with not much traffic noise but slightly flawed playing. On June 22 the battery timed out before this song. On June 24 there was too much traffic noise. June 26 was okay with not much traffic noise. June 28 was not bad but with a little traffic noise. Of "Les Sucettes" June 21 was okay. On June 23 it got cut off. On June 25 there was a little too much traffic noise. For June 27 and 29 the battery had timed out on the previous song. 

            In the Movie Maker project for creating a video of my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" I synchronized the concert videos with the studio audio at the points at the beginning of the finale of the song when I sing "shock therapy", followed by a response of "shock therapy", then my second "shock therapy" and Brian's second response. I saved that and then worked on trying to synchronize my third repetition of "shock therapy". But it was time for dinner and I wanted to be sure I had it right and so I didn't save the last few changes. I'll work on it instead on Tuesday. 

            I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching season 1, episodes 28 and 29 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Joe is doing the shopping at Sam Drucker's store while Kate is away. He's buying a washboard and insists on a different identical washboard than the one Sam has handed him. Sam goes to the pile and brings Joe back the same one. Joe says, "That's better". While Joe haggles over the price Floyd comes in for the fifth time and tells him the Cannonball's ready to go. Then Joe haggles over a hat when Floyd comes back to remind him again, saying he's got thirty seconds. Joe doesn't believe they'd leave without him and continues to haggle. The train leaves and Joe has to walk home. Now Joe refuses to speak to Charlie and Floyd. The next day Joe learns that Betty Joe's friend Orville has rigged up a hot rod so it can drive on the train tracks. Joe goes into business with Orville and begins to compete with the Cannonball by picking up passengers with the railroad hot-rod. Now Charlie and Floyd are mad at Joe. When Kate returns home and learns of the feud she refuses to feed Joe, Floyd and Charlie until they've made up. Her strategy is to make them mad at her so they'll be united and it works after they spend a day eating green bananas from Sam's store. 

            In the second story Norman Curtis, the president of the C & FW Railroad is on vacation in Europe. Vice President Homer Bedloe takes advantage of this to ask the executive vice president J.B. Giddings to make him supervisor of the Hooterville Cannonball. Giddings knows Curtis won't allow them to shut down the Cannonball but Bedloe's strategy is to put the train on such a gruelling schedule that Charlie and Floyd will shut it down themselves, so Giddings agrees. Bedloe checks into the Shady Rest and says that the train will only stop at the hotel three times a day. Once in the morning to pick Bedloe up, once to stop for lunch, and once to drop him off in the evening. The train starts making fifteen useless runs a day from Hooterville to Pixley. Kate's hotel is getting no business and Charlie and Floyd are exhausted. Finally they give up and so Bedloe heads for the stockholders meeting in the city to announce the shutting down of the Cannonball. But Kate buys one share of C & FW stock so she, Joe, her daughters, Charlie and Floyd can attend. Kate points out that Bedloe is getting paid a $30,000 vice president's salary to work as a supervisor on a spur line. Giddings transfers Bedloe to become a supervisor on a branch line of the railroad in Alaska. 

            Giddings was played by Lauren Gilbert. 

            The first of the stockholders was played by Ned Wever, who was a stage and old time radio actor. He starred as the detective Bulldog Drummond on the popular radio series of the same name. The show ran from 1941 to 1954, but Wever was not the only actor during that time to play the character. He was also one of the actors to play Dick Tracy on the radio series of the same name. It ran from 1934 to 1948. He also co-starred on Young Widder Brown starring Florence Freeman.