Tuesday 23 May 2023

Rich Little


            On Monday morning I uploaded "La Dernière valse" (The Final Waltz) by Boris Vian to Christian's translations to begin preparing it for blog publication. 
            I finished memorizing "Mon père un Catholique" (My Dad Was Catholic) by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords but no one had posted them and so I started working them out. I've got the intro done. 
            I weighed 85.3 kilos before breakfast. 
            I called a few leather places that the internet said were open today but the only one that was open was By the Namesake, which is just a few blocks away from here. The person I spoke with said that guitar straps are outside their business model. I asked, "Wouldn't a guitar strap be simpler than a jacket?" She said it would but they don't make them. Their website says they do custom leather work. If it had said they make specifically custom leather jackets I wouldn't have put them on my list. "Custom leather work" to me implies they can make any leather items within reason. She also said they worked by appointment only. That's a very internet spawned practice that shows how distant businesses are becoming from their customers. Businesses no longer care about being part of communities.
            I did manage to get one productive thing done this morning. I screwed a guitar hanger into the wall just to the left of my computer and hung up my Kramer electric. 



            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch. 
            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Bloor and Yonge, then went down Yonge to King and rode past Perfect Leather at around Spadina. They were closed but now I know where they are. 
            I weighed 85.4 kilos at 17:15. 
            I was caught up on my journal at 18:09. 
            I compared the July 9 video of my performance of "Baby Pop" to that of June 19 and I think June 19 is better, plus it has the advantage of already being synchronized with the microphone audio in Movie Maker. So June 19 is the French version of the song I'll be uploading to YouTube. 
            I compared the June 11 video of my performance of "Dancing to Baby Pop" to June 20. They're both pretty good but I think that June 11 has better light and a little less traffic noise, so June 11 is ahead just past the post. I compared June 11 to June 24 and there's too much traffic noise on June 24 and so June 11 wins. I compared June 11 to June 28 and June 28 is pretty good and maybe even better in terms of performance, but there's a little more traffic noise. June 11 also has an edge because it's already synchronized in Movie Maker and so I'll say June 11 wins again. There are only July 2 and 6 left to compare to June 11 and I'll do that tomorrow. 
            I continued to search for video clips that might fit the line "refer to current literature" from my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" but it's still illusive. I was envisioning something with lightning coming from a book but so far nothing like that has turned up. I tried The Book of Vishanti" from the Dr. Strange film but that doesn't work. There's a big book in the German silent film The Golem that might work, although there's no lightning. I'll keep looking. I'm almost finished with the video for the song but the ending is especially important to get right. 
            I put olive oil, salt and paprika on three chicken legs and grilled them in the oven. I had one with a beer while watching the eighth season finale and the final season premier of The Beverly Hillbillies. 
            The first story is a continuation of the previous one. Shifty Shafer's wife Flo had thrown him out for turning honest and returning half a million dollars to Jed Clampett. Shifty and Flo decide to team up like in the old days so she can help him keep on the crooked and wide path. 
            Meanwhile Drysdale is buying a large amount of land in the San Bernardino Mountains because he thinks that Jed has discovered oil there. He sends Jane to find out where Jed plans to drill so he can buy the land. 
            Shifty has convinced the Clampetts that he actually owns the San Bernardino Mountains because he's inherited them from his Spanish side. Flo poses as his Spanish mother who doesn't speak any English. She says to the Clampetts "Iguana" which John says means "pleasure" and so the Clampetts say "iguana" from then on when they mean pleasure. 
            Jane learns that Jed isn't drilling for oil but to suck the LA smog into a mountain. Jane is thrilled to hear it because it is going to severely upset Drysdale. John learns that Jethro has taken the half million and went looking for him. Jed says he's going to the bank to get another bag of money. He gets a sack containing $700,000. 
            Flo cracks the Clampett wall safe only to find that's where Granny keeps her goat cheese and faints when she smells it. Granny revives her with moonshine. When Flo recovers she drinks some more. In her drunken state she no longer wants to steal from the generous Clampetts and so she and Shifty leave without the sack of money. 
            Drysdale is in a state of shock when he learns that he bought all that land for nothing since Jed is not drilling for oil. 
            In the second story the Clampetts still have the sack of money and they are waiting for Honest John to come for it. Drysdale tries to force Jed to give the money back to the bank. When Jed says he wants to use the money to help John solve the pollution problem Drysdale tells him he can't solve pollution locally. It has to be done through the president and the great minds that he employs. Jed tells him he wants to go to Washington to give all his money to the president. Drysdale says for him to let him look into it first. Drysdale hires Canadian impressionist Rich Little to call Jed and pretend to be President Nixon in order to tell him not to go to Washington and to leave his money in the bank. He finishes by telling them to stay there and do what the man in the white coat tells them. When Jane sees Rich Little she asks for his impressions of John Wayne and Ed Sullivan. Ed Sullivan says on his next show he'll have World War One with the original cast. Drysdale cheats Little out of his fee. 
            Meanwhile the milkman arrives at the back of the Clampett mansion and reads a note that they are going to Washington. He says to Jethro, "You're going to Washington" and since the milk man has a white coat he thinks it's the man in the white coat that Nixon told them to wait for confirming that they are going to Washington. The Clampetts finish the episode on the plane to Washington. 
            In the late 60s the Ottawa born Rich Little was considered to be the world's best impressionist. His only rival was Frank Gorshin who played The Riddler on the Batman TV series, but Rich won the title. At the age of 17 he won a talent contest on CBOT radio in Ottawa. He became a relief announcer for CFRA and then a DJ for CJET. In 1963 he recorded his first album "My Fellow Canadians" in which he imitated John Diefenbaker, Lester Pearson, and Tommy Douglas. His second album that same year was Scrooge and the Stars in which he imitated 22 Hollywood stars all playing parts in A Christmas Carol. He made his US television debut in 1964 on The Judy Garland Show. This led over the next two years to appearances on several of the most popular variety shows, including Ed Sullivan. By the end of 1965 he'd moved permanently to the United States. In 1966 he hosted The Rich Little Show on CBC Radio. He played Stan Parker on the sitcom Love On A Rooftop. When he did his impersonation of Nixon the president didn't recognize himself. In 1983 he dubbed the voice of David Niven for the Curse of the Pink Panther. He was awarded a star on Canada's Walk of Fame and another on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2002 he starred in the play The Presidents in which he portrayed the nine most recent US presidents. In 2022 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.



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