Thirty years ago today
On Wednesday night I posed for David Campbell’s drawing class at the Ontario College of Art. Since I didn’t have to work the next day I went after work to perform on the Art Bar reading series open stage.
Friday, 2 October 2026
Thursday, 1 October 2026
Paul Newman
I consolidated my memorization of the first two verses of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted Change for the Toilet) by Boris Vian.
I worked out all the chords for the chorus of “La fille aux claquettes” (The Tap Dancing Girl) by Serge Gainsbourg except for the little instrumental bit after the final line. I’ll have that done on Monday and then the pattern of the song should be established.
I weighed 90.85 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin during song practice for the last of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time.
I lint rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room and picked up a cluster of bedbugs attempting to form a nest.
I removed the boards from the upper storage shelf in my bedroom. I put the ones with collages on them and the ones that are part of furniture in the kitchen and threw out a few that I hadn’t been keeping for any good reason.
I weighed 91.85 kilos before lunch. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.
I weighed 91.5 kilos at 18:00.
I was still three days behind in my journal and worked on catching up.
I made pizza on a slice of 7 grain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, a chopped slice of ham, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching This Time Together a cast reunion of The Carol Burnett Show from 2012.
Carol once gave the cast a lecture before the family sketch telling them she wanted some discipline and for people to stop cracking up. That was just before the time in the Family sketch when Tim was playing Mickey Hart and telling the story of the Siamese elephants joined at the trunks. Carol was the first one to crack up.
Lyle thinks Tim’s future wife Charlene had a lot to do with him getting hired because he heard that Joe the producer asked her what she thought.
Vicki says when the writers of the Family sketch heard Carol, Vicki, and Harvey doing the characters in a southern US accent they walked out of the room because they were so upset. They eventually liked the accents. Carol started asking them for more Family sketches and one could hear them both typing like crazy from their office and yelling at each other.
Vicki says the echo in the women’s washroom was great for rehearsing character voices.
The time that Joanne Woodward was a guest on the show her husband Paul Newman was in the booth. Later they went for Chinese food and Paul taught Carol how to use chopsticks.
Carol says Desi Arnaz invented the three camera thing for sitcoms.
Tim says he didn’t really want to be in the business but The Carol Burnett Show was so comfortable that he changed his mind.
Lyle says he was getting gas one time when he noticed another guy looking at him. The guy came over and asked if he was an actor and Lyle confirmed he was. He asked for his autograph and Lyle gave it to him but when he read, “Lyle Waggoner?” he said, “Never heard of you!” then he handed it back and drove away.
Carol says a guy walking with his wife in New York stopped her once and asked, “Aren’t you that girl on The Garry Moore Show?” Carol told him she was and he said to his wife, “Hey May, she ain’t such a dog!”
Vicki says once when she and Carol were in Hawaii they went to the washroom and somebody passed their autograph book to Carol under the stall to ask for her autograph.
Vicki says when they flew to shoot the show in Australia and the plane landed, Tim was rolling down the aisle, bumping into seats and going, “Ow! Yipes! Whoa!” until he bumped against the pilot’s door at the front. Then he stood up and he was wearing his sleep mask like a bra. Then he said, “Wow! Rough landing!” and walked back to his seat.
Carol says when they were in Australia she and her husband Joe were going to take Tim to dinner. When they knocked on his room to pick him up he shouted, “It’s open! C’mon in!” They found him in bed with a life sized toy sheep while smoking a cigarette.
One time in Hawaii they were dining in their hotel restaurant that had a palm tree that went up through the ceiling. Tim said he was going to his room, then just climbed the palm tree and disappeared.
Paul Newman came from a well off family in Shaker Heights, Ohio. He acted in plays in grade school and high school. He got kicked out of Ohio University for denting the college president’s car with a beer keg. He later attended the Yale University School of Drama, paying his tuition by selling encyclopaedias, which he was a very good at. He made his TV debut in 1952 in Tales of Tomorrow. He made his Broadway debut in 1953 when he was an understudy for the lead in the play Picnic. His future wife Joanne Woodward was also an understudy in the same play. He was accepted without auditioning into The Actors Studio. He starred in Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Left Handed Gun, The Rack, The Long Hot Summer (for which he won Best Actor at Cannes), Harper, Hombre, The Secret War of Harry Frigg, Sweet Bird of Youth, Rally Round the Flag Boys, From the Terrace, Paris Blues, A New Kind of Love, Winning, WUSA, The Drowning Pool, Harry and Son (which he also directed), Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Towering Inferno, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Slap Shot (his favourite), Sometimes a Great Notion (which he also directed), The Verdict, The Colour of Money (for which he finally won an Oscar), Absence of Malice, Nobody’s Fool, When Time Ran Out, Twilight, Blaze, Pocket Money, Exodus, The Young Philadelphians, Torn Curtain, and Fort Apache the Bronx. He co-starred in Until They Sail, The Helen Morgan Story, Cat On a Hot Tim Roof (for which he was Oscar nominated), The Hudsucker Proxy, and Cars. He made his directorial debut with Rachel Rachel in 1968. He directed The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man In The Moon Marigolds and The Glass Menagerie. He was a civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, gun control, and anti war activist. He was a passionate race car driver. His Newman’s Own salad dressing business raised $600 million for charity. He founded the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for children with serious illnesses. He was a skilled blues and jazz piano player. He was on Richard Nixon’s Enemies list. He trained to be a pilot in the US Navy but was rejected because he was colour blind. He was the model for the silver age superhero Green Lantern in 1959. He said he signed over 500 autographs as Marlon Brando. He was nominated for ten Academy Awards. He was the principle shareholder of the periodical The Nation and sometimes wrote for it.
October 1, 1996: Our featured writer was Barry Carleton
Thirty years ago today
On Tuesday I worked from 9:30 to 12:30 but I have no record where it was. Since I didn’t write down the name of the place in my appointment calendar it must have been familiar to me so I’m guessing I posed at a high school like Central Tech.
That night as always I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel and our featured writer that night was Barry Carleton.
Wednesday, 30 September 2026
September 30, 1996: I was on the internet now but had no I idea how to do anything there
Thirty years ago today
On Monday Andrew helped me find an internet service provider so I could go online with my new computer. I got a dial up account with Global Serve (which later changed its name to Primus). My first email address was christia@globalserve.net. Andrew also helped me find a second hand printer for my computer but when we connected it the thing refused to work with Windows. Andrew had to split my computer into two operating systems as he installed OS2, so whenever I needed to use the printer I had to sign in to OS2. It was really fucked up.
Tuesday, 29 September 2026
George Schlatter
I memorized the first two verses of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted Change for the Toilet) by Boris Vian.
I worked out the chords for a little more than half of the chorus of “La fille aux claquettes” (The Tap Dancing Girl) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are little instrumental bits after each line so it takes more time.
I weighed 90.65 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin during song practice for the third of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time.
Around midday I rode to No Frills where all the grapes were too soft. There were watermelons but they weren’t from Canada. They were from the States but the state of Michigan, which is against Trump’s tariffs so I guess it’s not so bad. I got two watermelons, a pack of blueberries, some bananas, a pack of chicken legs, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, mouthwash, some medium Ziploc bags, a jug of lemonade, a jug of orange juice, two containers of skyr, and some wedge fries.
I weighed 91.15 kilos at 14:40. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade.
I took a siesta and got up too late to take a bike ride.
I weighed 91.2 kilos at 17:25.
I was still three days behind in my journal and worked on catching up.
I made pizza on a slice of 7 grain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, two chopped slices of ham, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching part 1 of a 2012 cast reunion of The Carol Burnett Show.
When Carol first called Vicki she told her she was coming to see her compete for Miss Fireball. Carol told her she was very pregnant and didn’t want to be seen so she asked for seats in the back so she could slip in and out. The organizer didn’t believe Vicki when she told him Carol Burnett was coming. It was at the Hollywood Park Race Track. It was the Firemen’s Ball with an 1890s firehouse theme. There were 8 girls in the competition with two cancan numbers, and Vicki had her individual talent where she played the guitar with a kazoo strapped around her neck. Vicki won the contest. The organizer announced that Carol was there. That was November and two months later Carol gave birth. Vicki was on her way to a recording session with The Young Americans when she decided to stop at the hospital and bring Carol some flowers. The nurses thought Vicki was Carol’s sister Chrissie so they let her in right away. Carol told her she was going to call her when she got her tummy back. Vicki got the call at the end of her senior year in high school. By coincidence, Carol’s manager saw Vicki singing with the Young Americans on The Andy Williams Show and called Carol, saying he’d found the girl to play her sister on her new show.
Carol says when they did the mini-musicals Ken and Mitzi Welch would write a whole story around the works of a certain composer and or lyricist like George and Ira Gershwin.
Vicki could read music but Carol made up her own musical shorthand.
When the Jackson 5 were on the show there was an earthquake.
Lyle says somebody gave Harvey a gold chain with the letter H on the end and they called it “the Preparation H Award for the biggest pain in the ass”.
Vicki says she got to touch the golden age of television because Carol’s show was the last show of that age.
Carol hired the very best people and then just let them fly.
Tim says George Schlatter was doing a show with John Wayne and Tim as guests. Tim asked George if it would be funny if he called John “The Duck” instead of “The Duke”? George said John Wayne has a great sense of humour. When Tim tried it John broke a picture, a bottle, and a breakaway chair over his head.
Carol says she never met John Wayne.
They all sing Carol’s theme together.
George Schlatter was the creator and
executive producer of Laugh-In and Real People. He established The American Comedy Awards. He co-wrote and produced Sinatra: 80 Years My Way. He won 5 Emmy Awards out of 25 nominations. He produced the first five years of The Grammy Awards. He wrote the book Still Laughing: A Life in Comedy.
When he wrote a script for The Jackie Gleason Show Jackie threw it up in the air and said, “This is shit!” The next day he presented Gleason with the exact same script and he said, “That’s a lot better.” He said Jackie Gleason and Red Skelton were not nice people. Red Buttons and Bob Hope were murder on writers but Jack Benny was not.
He wrote Victor Borge’s 20th anniversary in 1971. He produced the first five episodes of The Judy Garland Show. He co-wrote, produced and directed the movie Norman Is That You?
Dick Clark
I uploaded “Les bienfaits de la pratique” (The Benefits of Practice) by Boris Vian to my Christian’s Translations blog and published it. I posted my translation on my Boris Vian fan page and on my personal Facebook page. The next Vian song on my list is “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted Change for the Toilet). There’s audio for that one so I’ll start learning it on Saturday.
I worked out the chords for the first verse and part of the chorus of “La fille aux claquettes” (The Tap Dancing Girl) by Serge Gainsbourg. I might have the chorus done tomorrow.
I had to skip breakfast because I was scheduled for my implant surgery at the U of T School of Dentistry and so I had to start getting ready at 8:30. I left my place at 9:00. The Elm Street entrance was closed for construction and so I had to go in through the Edward Street entrance and figure out how to get up to the third floor from there. I finally found the elevator and got to the Periodontics office where I had to pay $1640. I guess the big fee will probably be for the crown when that goes on, which I assume will be between $3000 and $4000. At least that will be a few months so I can get more money in the bank from my pension payments.
Dr. Martin Lambert froze me up pretty good. I got mildly yelled at for closing my mouth while there was a pin there but I should have been told beforehand not to close my mouth because a pin was there. The assistant Isabella called the pin the CN Tower and I saw later it was because there was a part around it that looks something like the CN Tower’s observation deck. Martin drilled down and then screwed in the implant.
Some of Dr. Xia’s bone graft collapsed and so Martin had to fill the space around the implant with a new bone graft and also bury it with more bone to put it to “sleep” for a few months. The original plan without glitches would have been a four month wait before the crown goes on but now it will be six to nine months. Martin’s professor suggested that I take vitamin D to strengthen the bone. Apparently most Canadians are vitamin D deficient because it’s a sunshine vitamin. But I probably get more sun in the winter than most people as I have southern exposure and big windows. Plus I eat a lot of meat which is a rich source of D3.
Martin stitched the gum together over the bone graft. He frequently complimented Isabella for her assisting work. He said that at U of T the dentists are spoiled because the assistants are professionals. He said that in a lot of the dental schools in the States the assistants are also students and they often don’t know how to assist.
He prescribed the same things Dr. Xia prescribed after my bone graft: Amoxicillin the antibiotic to be taken three times a day for a week; Ibuprofen for pain, though I still have a full container from last time because I didn’t need it; a chlorohexidine gluconate oral rinse to be taken twice a day starting a day after surgery; and he added dexamethasone to reduce swelling with one and a half tablets to be taken the next morning, one tablet the morning after that, and half a tablet on the third morning. I’m scheduled to see Martin again for a follow up in two weeks when I assume he’ll be removing the stitches.
Before going home I went straight to Vina pharmacy and had to wait several minutes for a newbie pharmacist to fill my prescription. At first he said they didn’t have the dexamethasone but later he discovered they had it after all. They cut one of the tablets in half and put the half tablets in a separate container as if I’m too stupid to tell the difference between a whole and a half tablet. I also bought some vitamin D3 because it was the only D vitamin they had. Apparently it’s generally the most effective form.
I weighed 90.25 kilos before lunch.
I took a long siesta.
I weighed 90. 8 kilos at 17:25, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since July 24.
I was still three days behind in my journal and worked on catching up.
I had my last potato (a tiny one) with gravy and a chicken leg while watching Let’s Bump Up The Lights, a Carol Burnett Special from 2004.
Carol, Vicki, Tim, and Lyle are sitting together. Vicki tries the Tarzan yell and pretty much nails it. Both Tim and Lyle mime a silent Tarzan yell to be dubbed with Johnny Weismuller’s original Tarzan yell. Actually the Tarzan yell in his movies was engineered from recordings of Swiss yodeling, opera singing, and the cry of a camel, then some of it was played backwards. Apparently he later on learned how to do it with his own voice.
Carol says she entered a Tarzan yell contest in London once and came in third. She was the only female in the contest. Lyle asks, “What show did the winner get?”
Lyle says he and his wife took a vacation to Peru and were chopping through the Amazon jungle to visit a First Nation village when they met another tour group from the States chopping their way out. One of them recognized Lyle from The Carol Burnett Show.
Vicki says she and her daughter went to visit the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. They went into one of the wood huts to buy souvenirs. There was an old Tiwa man sitting in the dark corner with his hat down. Then he looked up at Vicki and asked, “You Mama?” He came out into the light to take pictures with her.
Lyle says even after he was on the show for a couple of weeks he’d have people calling him by name anywhere in the country. Carol says when people view television performers from home they become more familiar than movie stars. Vicki says she noticed early on that if a guest on the show was in movies they would be “Miss Hayworth” or “Mr. Stewart.” But if it was a TV star they would call them by their first name.
Carol says they were one of the few shows in the world that finished in time to go have dinner.
Vicki says of Carol she cared about the whole crew and knew if the prop man’s dog was throwing up.
Vicki says when they did the take-off on Showboat she couldn’t find her starting note. Hal Linden, who was stage trained, was staring at her as if to say, “You little twit!”
Vicki calls The Carol Burnett Show "The Emerald City" because it was unique in show business.
Vicki says she used to go home to Lyle’s place for lunch with his wife. And Lyle taught her how to do plaster of Paris sculptures. Vicki also became friends with Bob Mackie because he was one of the youngest of the staff and came from the same part of California.
Lyle says that while nobody planned to break up during a sketch, players did plan to break the other player up with what they called “savers”.
Tim says when he tricked Harvey into being on Dick Clark’s Bleepers, Bloopers, and Blunders, the race horse they brought out to sell wasn’t even their race horse but Harvey couldn’t tell. After he got punked Harvey didn’t talk to Tim for months.
Lyle says he was in the Green Room with Harvey when he got the script for Blazing Saddles. He was reading it and commenting that it would never sell.
Vickie says Bob told her he had 45 seamstresses putting together between 60 and 80 pieces a week.
Vicki says she took Carol shopping once and in a boutique she went into the dressing room with about fifteen outfits and shocked the salesperson with how lightning quick she could try on and take off clothes. She developed the skill from doing live TV.
Carol says on the Garry Moore Show she would change in the elevator with her dresser but Garry didn’t know that and ran in to also use it to change with his dresser. They just turned their backs on each other and did it with four people in a tiny elevator.
Dick Clark got his first job when he was 16 in the mail room of WRUN Radio in Ithaca New York. The station was owned by his uncle and managed by his father. He worked his way up to being a weatherman and then an announcer. He graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Business Administration. In 1952 he was working at WFIL Radio when he became a substitute host for Bob Horn’s Bandstand on the WFIL TV station. After Horn was arrested for drunk driving Clark became the permanent host. In 1957 the show got national distribution and the name was changed to American Bandstand. Clark added interviews, starting with Elvis. He introduced lip synced performances and a “rate a record” segment. The latter established the catchphrase: “It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it!” Clark mandated a dress code of skirts or dresses for the girls and coats and ties for the boys. Clark was also the first bandstand host to allow black performers on the show. The biggest names in rock and roll appeared on the show over its long run and helped to ease the TV viewing public into feeling more accepting of rock and roll. He saved the career of Connie Francis when he played her song “Who’s Sorry Now?” on his show and caused it to become a hit. In 1958 Chuck Berry made his network television debut on American Bandstand when he sang “Rock and Roll Music”. By 1959 American Bandstand was reaching an audience of 20 million. Many performers got their first national television exposure on American Bandstand, including The Supremes, The Beach Boys, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, Chubby Checker, Tina Turner, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Simon and Garfunkel, Iggy Pop, Prince, Talking Heads, and Madonna. Clark began managing artists, arranging concert tours, and hosting live sock hops. Paul Anka credited Clark with creating youth culture by showing teenagers publicly enthusing over rock and roll. In 1960 an investigation into payola found that Clark owned partial copyrights to over 150 songs, many of which were featured on his show. Nothing illegal was found on Clark’s part but he was given a choice to sell his shares or leave the show, so he sold and stayed. Clark moved the show to LA and started Dick Clark Productions. He hosted The Dick Clark Show from 1958 to 1960. He produced Where the Action Is, TV Bloopers and Practical Jokes, and So You Think You Can Dance? He hosted the game shows $10,000 Pyramid, The $100,000 Pyramid. Scattergories, The Challengers, and a male version of The View called The Other Half. He also hosted the radio shows The Dick Clark National Radio Survey, Countdown America, and Rock Roll and Remember (which was inspired by Dick’s autobiography of the same name). He owned several radio stations. He starred in Because They’re Young. He co-starred in The Young Doctors. In 1968 he co-wrote and co-starred in the movie Killers Three. He produced the film Psych-Out. In 1972 he produced In Concert. In 1972 he produced and hosted the first Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin Eve, which continued every New Year except for 1999. He created and produced The American Music Awards in 1974. He became the mentor of Ryan Seacrest, who took over New Years Rockin Eve after Clark. He’s won five Emmys and one Peabody Award. He had a chain of restaurants and was criticized in Michael Moore’s documentary Bowling for Columbine because he would hire single welfare mothers for very little pay and the son of one of his employees became a shooter at the Columbine school. Clark refused to be interviewed.
September 29, 1996: My daughter and I played Doom on my new computer
Thirty years ago today
My daughter and I played games on my new computer, like Doom, Descent and Fire and Ice until her mother picked her up.
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