Robert Wisdom

            On Monday morning I searched for the chords for "Au bon vieux temps" (In the Good Old Days) by Boris Vian but no one posted any, so I worked out the first two for the intro. 

            I finished editing "Être ou ne pas naître" (To Be or Not to Be) by Serge Gainsbourg in Christian's Translations to prepare it for publication on the blog. All that's left is to post an accompanying video and then I'll publish it tomorrow. 

            I audio and video recorded song practice while playing my Martin acoustic guitar. I had a hell of a time getting through "Megaphor" because my hand kept going sharper than the B chord for the second line. I guess my hand got used to going higher to get to the B during the last four days of playing the song on my Kramer electric. I think "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" came out okay. I was singing better today but it was cloudy and the light was not very good so the video might be out of focus. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            I called my landlord to remind him that I need my plumbing fixed but just got his voice mail. 

            I called Topcuts to find out when my favourite stylist Amy will be in this week. I talked to Amy and told her I'd come on Friday at noon. 

            I worked on my Statement of Purpose that is supposed to accompany my application to enter the Master of Arts in Creative Writing program. I'm a little over a hundred words short. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 84.6 kilos at 17:00. 

            I chiseled some more crystals, breaking free some amethyst but mostly little pieces of black quartz. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:12. 

            I reviewed this morning's song practice video. I did "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" in one take and although not perfect it was one of the best versions I've done lately. I made it all the way to the end of "Laisse tomber les filles" for the first time during these late summer video sessions. I think I only made it a couple of times in the early summer. 

            I searched for videos to fit "want to sleep in the snow", "sleep in the snow" and "in the snow". With the latter I came across Nanook of the North and the snow scene from The Wizard of Oz, which used asbestos for snow. Those two might work but I'll keep looking. 

            I scanned several strips from the set of black and white negatives that I started yesterday. I can see that they are actually from at least two different rolls taken before I left for Europe and after I came back because some of the shots are of the apartment where I was living on Widmer Street and others are from the house on St. Clarens where I lived with Mike Copping and his family. There are a lot of street shots, pictures of people on the street and in art studios, my cats Siva and Sakti, my ex-girlfriend Brenda, and some pictures that I took of myself reflected and warped in a sheet of Mylar. 

           

            I grilled both the apple-maple and the Greek pork loins. I had a slice of the Greek one with a potato and gravy while watching season 2, episode 8 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 

            In this story a Klingon General named Dak'Rah, known as "The Butcher of J'Gal" is now a Federation ambassador trying to bring peace between Klingons and Starfleet. It is rumoured that he killed his own men when he found out they had ordered attacks on civilians. The Enterprise has to transport him and treat him like an honoured guest but this is complicated by the fact that Mbenga and Chapel both served on J'Gal, treating the wounded and the dying. They both suffer from post traumatic stress disorder because of their experiences. Erica Ortegas also served in the Klingon war and has a strong resentment for Rah. Mbenga has a past as a special operations soldier known as The Ghost. Wanting to end the slaughter Mbenga left the field hospital to fight and he knows that Rah did not kill his own men because Mbenga killed them. He also knows that it was Rah who gave the order for civilians to be killed. Rah tries to talk Mbenga into joining him in his campaign for peace because the image of two former enemies working side by side would be powerful. There is a struggle and Mbenga stabs Rah. Chapel covers for Mbenga by lying that she saw the whole thing. One would think that in a future military organization like Starfleet the actions of its officers would be recorded at all times.

            Dak'Rah was played by Robert Wisdom, who starred in The Wire. He co-starred in the third season of Prison Break. He co-starred in Vacation Friends. He played Coleman Carlisle on Nashville and Jim Moss on Barry. He's also a percussionist.

August 22, 1993: I sold my set of Frank Capra World War II propaganda films for $5

Thirty years ago today 

            On Sunday I could have taken my daughter but I decided to have another sidewalk sale. I didn't feel weak but I wasn't sure if I'd be at my best with her, plus I couldn't afford to buy her treats. I sold my set of World War II propaganda films for $5. I sold four National Geographics, and my bottle lamp with the marbles and made a total of $8.

Tawny Newsome

            On Sunday morning I finished memorizing "Au bon vieux temps" (In the Good Old Days) by Boris Vian. On Monday I'll start looking for the chords. 

            I ran through singing and playing "To Be or Not to Be", my translation of "Être ou ne pas naître" (To Be or Not to Be) by Serge Gainsbourg. I uploaded it to Christian's Translations where I started the editing process to prepare it for publication on the blog. 

            I audio and video recorded song practice while playing my Kramer electric guitar. As usual it took a few tries to get through "Megaphor" and "Sixteen Tons of Dogma". I don't think my singing was that great today. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went over to the hardware store to buy a stronger drain cleaner. The guy told me the strongest stuff they have is Professional but if one doesn't know what one is doing it can damage one's pipes. I asked what more one would need to know besides following the instructions and he said if I follow the instructions I should be okay. I took it home and followed the instructions to use half a cup of it, wait five minutes and then flush for three minutes with cold water. I did that and the cold water immediately backed up like nothing had been poured down. 

            I weighed 85 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 84.7 kilos at 17:00. 

            I chiseled some more quartz crystals free of the rock, mostly black but some of the amethyst. 

            I put a whole cup of the strong drain cleaner in the sink and flushed it after about ten minutes. The only result seems to be that the P-pipe under the sink has started to leak again. 

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

            I reviewed this morning's song practice video. I think I hit a wrong chord or two on Megaphor and Sixteen Tons of Dogma. I also don't think I was singing very well. 

            In the Movie Maker project for creating a music video of my song "Sleep in the Snow" I got the concert video synchronized with the studio audio up to the instrumental. But the studio instrumental is about twice as long and so now I need to find some video to fill up the extra time. 

            I scanned the rest of the colour negatives from March of 1987 and then a black and white set from probably the mid 80s with mostly shots of people on the street and in art studios. I started a very large set of black and whites that are also probably from the mid 80s. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce Genoa salami and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episode 7 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 

            This story is a crossover with the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks. Four of the characters from that show, Ensigns Brad Boimler, Bekett Mariner, Sam Rutherford and Noel Wells are investigating an ancient portal. Rutherford takes a picture of Boimler in front of the portal and the flash activates the portal. Boimler is being sucked in and Mariner runs to save him. Boimler goes back in time to when Una, Spock and La'an are investigating the same portal. 

            Boimler is taken aboard the Enterprise where he is excited to see his heroes, Pike and Spock in real life. He keeps dropping tidbits he shouldn't about their fates. 

            An Orion ship approaches the Enterprise and Starfleet in this time knows Orions as pirates, so they prepare to fight. Boimler tells them it's a science vessel and it is. But later the Orion ship beams the portal aboard their ship. Boimler knows a way to track the Orions but he has to do it without giving the Enterprise crew the knowledge of how. The Orion Captain Karas wants Pike to persuade him to return the portal. Boimler says Karas wants to trade. Karas says he would like the grain in their cargo hold and so Pike agrees. 

            There is enough Horonium in the portal to send Boimler back to his time, but before he can step in, Mariner comes out looking to save him. Now they are both stuck in the past and there is no more Horonium. What they just used up was the last known Horonium in 100 years. 

            Every time Boimler sees Una he freaks out and moves away. Una asks Mariner what is wrong and she explains that Boimler has a picture of Una inside his locker. 

            Since they are stuck, Boimler wants to make things right. The grain that Pike traded was going to needy people and so he and Mariner plot to steal a shuttle and trade the portal back to the Orions in exchange for the grain. They send them a message but they are caught by La'an before they can make the trade. 

            Pike says he understands because he would be in awe if he were to go back in time to visit Archer's Enterprise. Suddenly Boimler knows how to find Horonium because ships of Archer's time used Horonium in their hulls. Also when a new ship is built bearing the name of a previous ship, a piece of the old ship is buried inside of the new ship. They find that piece under the floor in engineering and extract the horonium. 

            Boimler and Mariner are taken to the portal but Karas is there because he got Boimler's message. They have to explain that they come from a time when Orions are part of Starfleet and their friend Wells's great grandmother is a crewmember on Karas's ship. Pike offers to let Karas claim discovery of the portal and he agrees to that. 

            Back on the Enterprise the bridge crew are drinking the Orion Hurricanes that Mariner introduced and it causes everything to feel two dimensional. 

            This was a very entertaining episode and the two voice actors showed themselves to be very good live action comedy actors but still didn't make me want to watch Lower Decks. 

            Mariner is played by Tawny Newsome, who grew up riding amateur rodeo. She played Angela Ali on Space Force, Gabby in Brockmire, and Chelsea Leight-Leigh in Bajillion Dollar Properties. She's the co-host of the official Star Trek podcast. She writes and performs with Chicago's Second City. She sings with two country bands: Four Lost Souls and Jon Langford. She put out a desert punk album of original songs called Material Flats with Bethany Thomas.

August 21, 1993: I had a sidewalk sale until the shadow of the house fell over me and I made a dollar

Thirty years ago today

 

            On Saturday Nancy took our daughter to a birthday party and so I had a sidewalk sale. I sat outside until the shadow of the house was over me and the whole time I made ninety-nine cents. I sold my art deco fruit bowl and with the money I bought some fruit. Later that night I didn't win the lottery.

Dan Jeannotte

            On Saturday morning I saw two bedbugs near the top of the old exit door at the head of my bed. Both seemed healthy and had blood inside. My millionaire landlord has overtly refused to do anything about it because he says he can't afford it. 

            I revised my translation of "Être ou ne pas naître" (To Be or Not to Be) by Serge Gainsbourg. On Sunday I'll see if it works while singing and playing it and if so I'll upload it to my Christian's Translations blog. 

            I audio and video recorded song practice while playing my Kramer electric guitar for the third day of four. I did a few takes of "Megaphor" and I think it was okay in the end. Also the final take of "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" didn't sound bad in the playback. The camera timed out during my third take of "Baby Pop". 

            I weighed 84.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went down to No Frills where I bought three bags of green grapes, a basket of nectarines, a bottle of Liquid Plumber, a jug of vinegar, and two boxes of baking soda. They had more racks of pork ribs on sale but while I'm shooting videos I'm afraid of gnawing on those bones because I already wore away part of my two front fillings. It doesn't show that much right now but it could if I grind any more of the white off, so I'd better hold off. Back in April I was given a September 8 appointment at the Parkdale Community Dental Clinic, so unless they've found out that I'm no longer covered by the Seniors Plan it might still be on and maybe I can get the fillings fixed. Instead of the ribs I bought an apple-maple pork loin roast and a Greek style pork loin roast. They finally had the large containers of PC skyr, which are usually gone by the time I get there on Saturday and so I bought two.

            When I got home I spooned a cup of baking soda down my left kitchen drain, then poured down a cup of vinegar. The vinegar backed up and bubbled for a long time but it didn't clear the drain. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos before lunch, which is the lightest I've been at midday in eight days. I had Triscuits with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

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

            I weighed 83.5 kilos at 17:00. That's the lightest I've been in the evening in four and a half months. 

            I chiseled some more of the leftover rocks containing the amethyst and other crystals. This time I knocked off some little pieces of black quartz. 

            I poured the whole bottle of Liquid Plumber down the drain dividing it between the two sinks. After fifteen minutes I poured boiling and then hot water down both drains. Eventually it backed up again but the water went down faster than before. Maybe I'll try it again with the baking soda and vinegar before I buy some more Liquid Plumber. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:49. 

            I reviewed this morning's song practice video. The final take of "Megaphor" at 5:00 seemed to be all right and the ending of "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" wasn't too bad. Some of the other songs were okay too. 

            In the Movie Maker project for creating a video of my song "Sleep in the Snow", synchronizing the concert video with the studio audio continued to be just a matter of deleting small parts of the concert video in between lines. I stopped for the night just as I began cutting the space between "Why don't you throw a stone?" and "Too lazy to climb a mountain". 

            I finished scanning a set of black and white negatives from the 1980s of my ex-girlfriend Diane Hein. There are also shots of my friend Tom busking. I started a colour set from March, 1987 with shots of my ex-girlfriend Brenda. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, some Genoa salami I'd forgotten I had, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episode 6 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

            In this story the Enterprise is repairing a refinery that is mining deuterium from a star nursery and the Farragut is helping. Suddenly Uhura starts to hear strange noises and to hallucinate. For example she sees her mentor the late Hemmer as a zombie. Lieutenant James T Kirk, who is being promoted to First Officer on the Farragut, beams aboard the Enterprise and meets with his brother Sam. In the bar Kirk meets Uhura for the first time but she is not feeling friendly. She leaves and encounters a hallucination of herself attacking her. She strikes out and ends up punching Kirk in the nose. He finds out her problem and begins trying to help her. Una and Pelia discover a saboteur named Ramon on the refinery who is experiencing the same symptoms as Uhura. Uhura has been confined to her quarters for medical leave but she hears an alarm and goes to the bridge where she sees the entire bridge crew being sucked into space, but it's another hallucination. Ramon escapes from sick bay. La'an meets the Kirk of her timeline for the first time and is thrown off somewhat since she had feelings for the Kirk of another timeline and he died. Uhura discovers Ramon trying to sabotage a section of the Enterprise. She tries to stop him but Kirk appears, grabs her and orders emergency transport just before the room explodes and Ramon is ejected into space. Uhura, Sam and James figure out that there are invisible beings inside of the deuterium that are being tortured by the extraction. They reached out to Ramon and Uhura through their minds to try to communicate their pain. Uhura tells Pike and he trusts her. They need to evacuate the refinery, release all the deuterium they've mined and destroy the refinery. Una and Pelia have a confrontation because Una resents Pelia for replacing Hemmer. Una was a student of Pelia in the academy and Pelia gave her a C on a paper. Kirk and Spock meet for the first time. 

            Sam Kirk is played by Canadian actor Dan Jeannotte, who grew up in Montreal. He played Ryan Decker in The Bold Type, James Stuart in Reign, and Brandon Russell in The Good Witch. He is an improv artist and a member of the comedy troupe Uncalled For.

August 20, 1993: Tom Smarda leant me $2 without my asking

Thirty years ago today 

            On Friday there was still no Unemployment Insurance cheque in the mail and so I went up to the office. They told me the cheque was just mailed that day. They also let me fill out an advance card so my next cheque would be mailed in a week. I ran into Tom Smarda busking at the corner of Danforth and Pape and he leant me $2 without my asking for it. I used it to buy a lottery ticket and to make a couple of phone calls.

Jess Bush

            On Friday morning I finished working out the chords for "Être ou ne pas naître" (To Be or Not to Be) by Serge Gainsbourg and played the song in French. Next I have to adjust my translation to my better understanding of the rhythm of the song. 

            I audio and video recorded my song practice while playing my Kramer electric guitar for the second day of four. I think some of the takes came out okay but during the best take of "Megaphor" a fly landed on my nose so I probably can't use the video for that take unless I aim to look silly. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I did my laundry, including my new sheets and my new towel. The towel had a weird industrial-medicinal smell after I bought it but I was using it anyway. The cotton sheets smelled okay but I was hoping to shrink the fitted sheet. I assume it did shrink but not enough for me to notice.

            My kitchen drain pipe stopped leaking but now the sink just backs up slowly and then drains slowly. I tried baking soda and vinegar followed by hot water three times but it didn't affect whatever is blocking the drain. 

            I weighed 85.1 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 85 kilos at 17:30. 

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

            I reviewed this morning's song practice video. I think that the take of "Megaphor" at around 3:30 was not bad. I think I hit a few wrong chords on "Sixteen Tons of Dogma". My chipped front filling was somewhat noticeable but not extremely obvious. The friendly fly landed on my faced a couple of times. It sounded like the guitar was slightly out of tune although that wasn't obvious from listening to the Audacity audio this morning so maybe that's due to the lower quality of the camera microphone. 

            In the Movie Maker project for creating a music video of my song "Sleep in the Snow" I managed to synchronize the concert video with the studio audio for about half the first chorus. For the line, "Don't it make you wanna go to sleep in the snow" I just needed to remove a bit of the "wa" from the concert video. I took out a bit more after "Oh...", some more after the repeat of "Don't it make you wanna go to sleep in the snow", a bit more after , "Don't it make you wanna turn away and go", and more after, "Diving through a needle to the veins of nowhere". I left off trying to synchronize, "Hanging on to someone even though you know they don't care" by cutting more out after "nowhere". I'll tackle it again on Saturday. So far the concert video falls behind the studio audio because I hold the notes longer when I'm singing and so I don't have to add clips to line things up but rather take pieces away. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last two pork ribs while watching season 2, episode 5 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 

            In this story Spock and Chapel are travelling by shuttle to a moon called Kerkohv where a highly advanced civilization once lived and then vanished. Above the moon is a strange energy anomaly that is a stable vortex and a rupture in space-time. The shuttle is pulled toward the anomaly and next we see Spock waking up in sick bay on the Enterprise. There was an accident and the Kerkohvians healed him but they also made him human. Pike makes contact with a Kerkohvian named Yellow who explains that the shuttle collided with their portal and so they repaired it and repaired Spock according to their laws. In repairing Spock they matched his DNA with that of his uninjured comrade, Chapel. Yellow says no further communication is necessary and cuts off contact. 

            Spock has to deal with human emotions and it puts him in a state similar to that of an adolescent human, with emotional outbursts and an enormous appetite. Vulcans not only control their emotions but also their appetites and sensations. Now Spock is overwhelmed. 

            Chapel is working very hard to find a cure. 

            Meanwhile Spock's fiancé T'Pring says that her mother insists on having their engagement dinner and its accompanying rituals sooner than expected. Spock's human mother Amanda arrives to help him prepare and she senses something wrong with her son. He has to confess that he is human. She coaches him in how to behave like a Vulcan to fool T'Pring and her family. Other members of the Enterprise crew help as well. Amanda shows how she has learned to withstand pain as Vulcans do by grabbing a tea pot with no handles from the stove. 

            The ceremony begins and T'Pring's mother shows she is the dominant figure in the family, also having control over T'Pring's father who would be more inclined to partake of the Vulcan delicacies that Pike has prepared if not for his wife. 

            Chapel has come up empty in a search for a cure and so she talks Ortegas and Uhura into coming with her to the portal to request of the Kerkohvians that they fix Spock. 

            Spock passes the tests with T'Pring's mother but the mind meld is approaching and it is something that's harder to fake. 

            Chapel, Uhura and Ortegas end up in Kerkohvian other dimensional space. Yellow tells her that her request is irregular because the complaint period has passed. Yellow wants to know her relationship with Spock. When she says he is her friend it is not enough to override policy. Chapel has to admit that she has strong feelings for Spock. Yellow reveals that when the shuttle crashed Spock put all of the shields around her and left himself vulnerable. 

            Just before the mind meld Chapel interrupts the ritual to take Spock into another room and inject him with the Kerkohvian cure. He successfully performs the mind meld. 

            T'Pring's mother says she is impressed with how well Spock performed despite the handicap of his human side. Spock is offended by this insult to his mother and reveals that he completed the ritual to T'Pril's satisfaction while he was human. 

            Later T'Pring tells Spock she is hurt that he didn't trust her enough to share his secret. She tells him they need to spend some time apart. 

            Spock goes to Chapel and they start making love. 

            Chapel is played by Jess Bush, who at 19 was a contestant on Australia's Next Top Model, which launched her successful modeling career. She acted in Australian film and television productions but Strange New Worlds is her first acting work outside of Australia. She is also an accomplished visual artist and photographer. Her current art project is called The Bee Totem series. She won a Saturn Award for her performance as Nurse Chapel in the first season of Star Trek Strange New Worlds.