May 26, 1996: It was my birthday so I went to a strip club

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday Nancy picked our daughter up and then I went to the House of Lancaster for a beer. After that I bought some porn magazines.

Rudy de Luca

            On Sunday morning I memorized the fourth verse of “Il est Rigolo mon gigolo” (He’s a Giggle Oh My Gigolo) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are two verses left to learn. 

            I weighed 89.6 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since May 14. 

            I played my Martin acoustic for song practice and it went out of tune during every song. 

            Around midday I finished touching up the Blue Bliss paint on my bathroom rack. It’s ready now to mount on the wall, which I’ll probably do on Wednesday.

            I weighed 91 kilos before lunch. That’s the most I’ve pushed the scale in the early afternoon since March 2. 

            In the afternoon I rode up to The Dufferin Mall to buy socks and underwear so I don’t have to do laundry this week. I bought six ankle socks, six crew socks, and six pairs of briefs. Just riding up to the mall I saw two trees that had been torn down by the wind storm last night. 

            I weighed 90.4 kilos at 17:55. 

            I remembered to buy beer but the liquor store across the street closes early on Sundays so I had to ride down to the one at Uppity Village where I bought two six-packs of Creemore. During that ride I saw another blown down tree. 

            I weighed 90.2 kilos at 18:45. A little less than the evening of March 3. 

            I was caught up in my journal just before supper. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, black olive paste, tomato pesto, two sliced sausages and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 7, episode 17 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup someone asks who does the makeup for the show. She says it’s a little old guy named Al Schultz and she brings him out. He’s not old and in fact he later married Vicki Lawrence and they were together for 56 years until he died. 

            Someone asks if this is a repeat show. 

            Carl Reiner and Carol play a husband and wife who got to a restaurant to meet an insurance agent so they can be covered for accidents. Carol’s character is extremely accident prone and has only recently woken up from her second coma after their house burned down. Even just sitting there at the table she gets cut by broken glasses, burned by her husband’s cigar, gets a champagne cork shot into her mouth from across the room, has one of her real fingernails torn off, and she’s stabbed with a fork. The insurance man arrives (played by Harvey) and he gives them the papers to sign. Carl signs them but Carol still needs to sign. However, before she can, Carl accidentally steps on and breaks the fingers of her signing hand. Harvey sees she’s accident prone and cancels the deal. He closes his briefcase on her hand and starts dragging her away as he leaves. 

            Harvey plays an executive who is about to fly away to get married. Carol plays his dedicated secretary of 16 years who is staying behind to mind the office and obviously is in love with her boss. After he leaves she sings “Send in the Clowns” by Stephen Sondheim from the 1973 musical A Little Night Music. 

            Carl plays a marriage counselor who is on the phone with Bob who is thanking him for helping him patch things up with his husband. Harvey enters his office and he is the husband of a famous nightclub comedian named Totie Phyllis. He says the problem is that she will never stop joking even at home. Carl says to send her in but she refuses to enter until Harvey gives her show business intro similar to Johnny Carson’s entry. She makes a big intro and behaves as if the marriage counselor is a talk show host. She also brings her drummer wherever she goes so he can play a rim shot after every joke. Carl asks Totie if she loves her husband and she answers, “Does Raquel Welch sleep on her back?” (A reference to Raquel’s famously large breasts). Carl suggests a treatment whereby whatever joke he sets up, she doesn’t respond. He asks, “How fat is your mother in law?” Totie bites her fist to keep from responding. He asks several more questions. She screams and tries to crawl under his desk. His final question is, “What do you get when you cross a duck with Sonny Bono?” She collapses and Carl says she’s cured. Harvey picks her up and rejoices that he finally has his wife but she says, “An Italian quack is what you get when you cross a duck with Sonny Bono!” Harvey tosses Totie out the window. 

            Harvey comes to the supermarket with a hot date named Trixi. He’s bought several gourmet items because he plans to bring her back to his place and fix her a great meal before scoring. Carol plays the cashier and takes a long time to ring up all the items while Trixi is getting impatient and also is getting hit on by several men while she waits. A Boy Scout holds up three fingers in that organization’s salute but Trixi holds up five fingers to indicate his offer is short. By the time he’s finished Trixi is already leaving with someone else. 

            The final skit is a Mexican version of Little Red Riding Hood called La Caperucita Roja. Little Red Riding Hood is played by Carol in the character at that time very well known, voluptuous and highly sexualized Spanish actor, singer, and guitarist Charo. When she jerks her hips to the right or left it causes men to fall over as if they’ve been struck. Vicki in a Mexican accent plays the interpreter. Harvey plays the grandmother. Instead of a wolf there is a bull played by Carl Reiner. In La Caperucita’s basket she carries for her grandmother her special tortitas (which they say are little cookies but looking it up I see they are pancakes). They say that La Caperucita has the sweetest tortitas in town. The bull wants her tortitas and so he goes to grandma’s house to replace her. Grandma (played by a variation of Harvey’s big buxom woman character) has the hots for the bull. La Caperucita arrives but sees the bull’s horns and escapes. The matador (played by Lyle) replaces the woodcutter in the traditional story but when he sees the bull he runs away. La Caperucita defeats the bull with her cape and everyone wants her to kill him but her grandmother says to let him live with her. Then Carol and Vicki toss tortitas to the audience. Carol sings her usual closing song but in Spanish. 

            One of the writers for The Carol Burnett Show was Rudy de Luca, who cofounded The Comedy Store with Sammy Shore in Hollywood. He also wrote for The Tim Conway Show, He co-wrote Silent Movie, High Anxiety, Caveman (starring Ringo Starr), Million Dollar Mystery, Life Stinks, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, The Good Bad Guy, Screw Loose, and Box Office 3-D. He wrote the screenplay for Transylvania 6-5000. He co-starred in The Return of Count Yorga, and The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine.

May 25, 1996: It was a cool Saturday

Thirty years ago today 

            On Saturday I picked up my five year old daughter and she spent the weekend at my place. It was a cool day but we probably went to the playground anyway. 

            After she went to sleep I stayed up watching TV. I was looking forward to my birthday the next day when I'd probably go to a strip club. 

Richard Crenna

            On Saturday morning I memorized the third verse of “Il est Rigolo mon gigolo” (He’s a Giggle Oh My Gigolo) by Serge Gainsbourg. That’s half the song. 

            I weighed 88.6 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since May 14. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time after initial tuning. 

            Around midday I headed down to No Frills where I bought six bags of cherries, two packs of blueberries, some bananas, two packs of New Zealand lean ground beef, a pack of two gourmet naan, a Basque chocolate cheesecake, dental floss, a can of light whipped cream, a jug of lemonade, a jug of orange juice, two containers of skyr, a bag of Miss Vickie’s apple wood smoked chips and another of sweet chili chips. 

            I met my upstairs neighbour David at 14:00 because we had a lunch date. I insisted on paying because yesterday was his 61st birthday and also because it was my turn. He gave in and we went to the place of his choice. It was raining hard so we didn’t want to walk far. We went to Little Tibet and the door was open but they were closed so we settled on Ali’s Roti. He had rice with ox tail and I had a potato roti and a ginger beer. 

            I took a siesta at 15:35 and planned to get up at 17:05 but woke up at 17:50. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos at 18:10. That’s the same as the evening of May 11. 

            I got caught up in my journal. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread, with marinara, olive paste, tomato pesto, two sliced sausages, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 7, episode 13 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            In the first skit officers Dawson and Dawson, played by Richard Crenna and Carol have an armed robber cornered in a warehouse. Suddenly Carol asks for a divorce and they begin arguing about their marriage. She complains he’s not affectionate and he argues he can’t be that way with another cop. While they’re arguing the crook gets away. Then they hear on the radio a call for them to intervene in a domestic dispute at a certain address but they realize they are at that address and the call is about them.

            In the workshop of a toymaker there are only life sized dolls and one of them is Ruth Buzzi. The toymaker winds her up and sings the poem “There Was a Little Girl” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She sings the 1941 song “Squeeze Me Please Don’t Tease Me” by Duke Ellington and Lee Gaines. The old man goes to bed and all the dolls come to life to sing the 1911 Ragtime song “Oh You Beautiful Doll” by A. Seymour Brown and Nat D. Ayer. Ruth ends up knocking out all the other dolls then the toymaker spanks her. 

            Lyle plays Tom Hotchkiss the host of a game show called Celebrities and Peasants in which famous people match wits with nobodies. Ruth plays the movie star Helene LaFlange. Carol plays Anita Sims but Tom calls her Annette. She is a librarian and looks like the stereotype of a librarian with glasses and frumpy clothes. She says this is her favourite show and she always guesses all the answers. She spent everything she had to travel out to LA to be on the show. For the last month she had to sleep in the park. Helene asks, “Didn’t the squirrels bother you?” Anita says, “No, they were delicious”. Anita has to give Helene three one-word clues and have her guess the answer, which is “George Washington”. Anita’s first clue is “President” but Helene names President Sadat of Egypt. Anita says “American” and Helene says “Herbert Hoover”. Anita says “First” and Helene says “George Hoover”. Helene’s answer is “The Vatican” and her first clue is “spaghetti”. Anita guesses “a restaurant”. Helene says “Old” but Anita can’t even guess before time’s up. Helene’s final clue is “God” but Anita doesn’t get the connection. Tom says Anita is their only loser in six months. Anita shouts that she hocked her underwear to get there and dealt with being molested in the park just to play with the worst celebrity in the world. Helene says, “Play with? I thought I was supposed to play against you!” Anita begins attacking Helene, strangling her and dragging her down behind the desk to beat her. 

            Tonight’s theme is “The Bad Girl” and they begin with Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate. Mrs. Robinson checks into a hotel room with a Boy Scout played by Richard Crenna, who says all he wanted to do was help her across the street. 

            The next bad girl is Eve Harrington (played by Vicki) as she tries to destroy Margo Channing (played by Carol) in All About Eve. Carol’s impersonation of Bette Davis is over the top with each word emphasized and a pause in between. She catches Eve posing in front of the mirror with her gown, realizes she’s trying to take her place and fires her. Then Margo’s boyfriend Bill comes in. She says he’s the only one she can trust but then he poses in front of the mirror with the same gown. 

            Next is a parody of Born to Be Bad. Darlene (played by Ruth) is soon to marry the love of her life Kirk (played by Harvey), who also happens to be rich. Her cousin Christina Belle (played by Carol) comes to live with her. Christina immediately tries to drive a wedge between them and flirts with Kirk but he is unaffected. He and Darlene leave her alone in Darlene's apartment where she meets her alpha male down to Earth neighbour Buck Travis (played by Richard). Buck immediately comes on to her and she can’t resist. Christina gets a call from Kirk to come over and she thinks she’s lured him in but he only wants her to help pick out jewellery as a gift for Darleen. She selects the most expensive necklace but plants the seed in Kirk’s mind that if she accepts it she is only after him for his money. When he expresses that doubt Darline leaves him and Christina moves in. He marries Christina and they are unhappy together. They are throwing a party and Darline comes with Buck as her date. Christina and Buck begin kissing. She says she loves him but won’t tell Kirk for another year or so. He rejects her and says she only cares for herself. Kirk catches her and they are through. He gets back with Darline who has learned a lot from Christina. 

            Carol and Ruth talk about article 19 of the US Constitution, but there is no article 19. They mean the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in 1920. They do a song in period costumes in praise of the suffragists who fought to win that right. But it’s mostly a love song to the mimeograph machine which the suffragists used to print thousands of pamphlets for their campaign. They, Vicki, and several of the women dancers sing about being “cranks”, because apparently that’s where the meaning of the word as “obsessive” comes from as they would crank the machine to print the pamphlets. 

            At the age of 11 Richard Crenna co-starred for 11 years in the radio program Boy Scout Jamboree. He also voiced Oogy Pringle on the show A Date With Judy. He majored in Theatre Arts at The University of Southern California and earned a BA. He played Bronco Thompson on the radio sitcom The Great Gildersleeve from 1949 to 1954. He co-starred as Walter Denton on the radio show Our Miss Brooks and appeared in 94 episodes of the TV adaptation. He made his film debut in Let’s Dance in 1950. He co-starred in the TV series The Real McCoys from 1957 to 1963 and eventually became one of the four directors. He directed 8 episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. He starred in the series Slattery’s People (for which he was nominated for two Emmy Awards). He co-starred in the sitcom All’s Fair. He co-starred in the series Pros and Cons. He starred in the sitcom It Takes Two. He won an Emmy for his performance in the 1985 TV movie The Rape of Richard Beck. He starred in Midas Run, Devil Dog, The Evil, Stone Cold Dead, The Man Called Noon, and Death Ship. He co-starred in Over Exposed, Made in Paris, The Sand Pebbles, Catlow, Un Flic, Body Heat, Wait Until Dark, Marooned, Doctor’s Wives, Breakheart Pass, Wild Horse Hank, The Flamingo Kid, Summer Rental, First Blood, Rambo II, Rambo III, Table For Five, Hot Shots Part Deux, Leviathan, and Jade. He appeared in 13 episodes of Judging Amy.

May 24, 1996: Since it was Bob Dylan's birthday I performed my version of "Mr. Tambourine Man"

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday evening, since it was Bob Dylan’s birthday I performed my version of his song “Mr. Tambourine Man” on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of The Cameron.

Lucette Aldous

            On Friday morning I continued to work on memorizing the eighth verse of L'anguille (The Eel) by Boris Vian. 

            I also struggled with learning the third verse of “Il est Rigolo mon gigolo” (He’s a Giggle Oh My Gigolo) by Serge Gainsbourg. It’s a simple song but it’s very hard to memorize because every verse is similar but slightly different so it’s easier to get the lines mixed up than it would be if they were completely different. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune for about five songs. 

            Around midday I touched up the underside of the metal bathroom rack with Blue Bliss paint. On Sunday since I don’t think I’ll need to clean my humidifier I’ll touch up the top and then it will be ready to mount on the wall, perhaps on Wednesday. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos before lunch. I think my scale has recovered from when I dropped it a few days ago. It was registering about 2 kilos too few for a while but now it’s closer to what I weighed when I was at my doctor’s office. 

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

            I weighed 89.45 kilos at 18:00. I was caught up in my journal at 20:40. 

            I grilled eight chicken drumsticks and had two with a potato and gravy. 

            I went onto Discord because my daughter Astrid and I had a date to watch Wednesday but she didn’t show. I know she didn’t forget because she messaged me at 12:30 and said she was going to bed but would set an alarm for 20:30. Probably she’d been up all night and slept through the alarm. 

            I waited an hour until 22:00 and then kept my mic open while watching season 7, episode 12 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            This episode was her special live show from the Sidney Opera House in Australia. The show opens on the plane as the cast discuss how when one goes to Australia one loses a day. Harvey says it’s better than the other way. When you go to New York you lose your wallet, your watch and some teeth. Tim Conway says you lose in one direction and gain in the other, “Sounds like one of my wife’s diets”.

            Carol opens the show at the Opera House by singing “Today” by Jerry Herman from the 1966 musical Mame. 

            Carol talks with the audience about making “Waltzing Matilda” the Australian nation anthem. There’s a contest to rewrite the lyrics to make it anthem worthy rather than being about a poacher who commits suicide. A vote was taken but “Waltzing Matilda” didn’t win. It’s considered to be Australia’s national song but not its anthem. Carol says, “You had a contest for this building so it will only take 47 years. 

            In the first skit Tim Conway, in his old man character, plays Arthur Arthurstein, the oldest conductor in the world. He stumbles around as usual, then he swats a fly. In trying to shake the fly off the swatter he conducts the 1812 Overture by Rossini. He then somersaults off the stage. 

            Lucette Aldous and Edward Villella dance "Le Corsaire Pas de Deux". 

            In the next skit the husband and with acting team Funt and Mundane played by Harvey and Carol are to play a theatre in Australia. But the producer has locked Mundane in her dressing room because she’s drunk and Vicki the understudy will be playing her part. But after the play has started Mundane breaks out and staggers loudly onto the stage in character. On top of that, Funt’s toupee keeps flipping forward half off whenever he bends over. Vicki’s opening line was “I have left my husband Horace for you” but Mundane says, “I have left my husband’s horse for you”. Funt tries to ad lib that she is just a neighbour that’s wandered in by mistake. She looks at Vicki and thinks Funt’s character Reginald has gotten a new mirror. Funt and Vicki are doing a scene on the couch. Mundane sits on top of him without knowing his there. She feels his legs coming out from under her dress and thinks she’s gone numb in her own legs. Horace played by Lyle comes in with a gun. Funt punches Mundane and she falls behind the couch. She comes out with a hammer and taps the floor a few times, then she announces that the Sidney Opera House is finished. Horace has come to shoot Mundane’s and Vicki’s character Helen. He shoots Mundane but Vicki who is standing behind her falls down playing dead. Reginald mourns over her even as Mundane pulls her up standing alive. Then she pulls off both Funt’s toupee and Vicki’s wig and they run from the stage. 

            In the final skit Carol’s character the Charwoman comes out onto the stage alone and it’s set up as the set of the Swan Lake ballet. This is a re-enactment of the skit from season 4, episode 19 in which the Charwoman joins the other ballerina’s as a swan but still wearing her boots. Edward Villella’s character shoots the swan played by Lucette Aldous with a crossbow and the Charwoman punches him out. But then she does a comical pas de deux with him. He can’t lift her and so she lifts him. 

            Then the Charwoman sits on her bucket and sings “I Could Have Danced All Night” by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner from the 1956 musical My Fair Lady. 

            Lucette Aldous started training at the age of 3. At 17 she received a scholarship to study at the Royal Ballet School in London. She made her professional debut at 19 with the Ballet Rambert in Variations on a Theme. She joined the London Festival Ballet in 1963. She became the resident principle dancer of The Australian Ballet in 1971. She co-starred in the film adaptation of the ballet Don Quixote. In the mid 70s she retired from full time performing and taught at the Australian Ballet School. She was recognized as an Australian Living Treasure in 2004. She was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2018.

May 23, 1996: I posed for artists somewhere

Thirty years ago today

            I probably posed for some art school or some group of artists but I have no record where.