July 9, 1996: I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday night as always I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel at 1214 Queen Street West.

Kay Cole

            On Tuesday morning I went to bed after 2:30 and didn’t sleep before getting up at 5:00. Yoga is not a substitute for sleep but it helps. 

            I worked out the chords for the first line and a half of “La complainte de Bonnot” by Boris Vian.

            I revised some more of my translation of “Ça” (That), a parody of the Serge Gainsbourg song “Je t’aime. Moi non plus (I Love You. Neither Do I)”. I might have it finished on Wednesday. 

            I weighed 89.05 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the third of four sessions and as usual it was out of tune constantly. 

            At about 13:35 I left to go up the street to Family Dentistry for my bi-annual checkup. Dr. Singh fixed a few of my fillings and we were done in half an hour. My next check-up is in January 12. 

            I rode over to Home Hardware where I bought the Dirt Devil Handheld Steamer that I was told they would be getting yesterday. It cost $62.14 after tax and hopefully it will kill my bedbugs. 

            I weighed 89.05 kilos at 14:50, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since May 20.

            I took a siesta and slept an extra 20 minutes. 

            It was too late to take a bike ride. 

            I weighed 90.15 kilos at 17:45. That’s the hardest I’ve been in the scale in the evening since June 29 but not as hard. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:14. 

            I digitized my cassette tape of Rob Siciliano’s Heckle Night, recorded in Slough, England in the early 1990s. It’s only fifteen minutes long so I recorded both sides through my audio interface to Audacity and then extracted it to my hard drive. Tomorrow I’ll digitize my feature at Fat Albert’s in 1996 accompanied by Brian Haddon on recorder. 

            I used the steamer for the first time. I was supposed to wait for the green light but when it came on, at the same time the red light was still on. I didn’t know if I should wait for the red light to go off or if it just stays on so I just started. In the beginning it spit out a splash of water before there was a steady stream of steam. Considering the little bit of water the tank holds at 250 ml, it produces a lot of steam. I blasted the spaces under the baseboards a few times. 

            I had a potato with gravy and two strips of finger beef while watching season 10. episode 7 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            Four of the players from A Chorus Line are in the audience. They are there to see Kay Cole’s guest appearance. Carol encourages everybody to go see A Chorus Line. 

            A white guy with an afro asks Carol if she still gets stage fright. She says when she does her hair looks just like his. 

            A teenager asks her to do Nora Desmond but Carol says she needs the drag. She asks the kid if they know what “drag” is and they say it’s a cigarette. Carol explains that it’s the costume. 

            A girl wants a kiss from Tim Conway and a guy wants a handshake. Tim pretends to be awkward about it. 

            In the first sketch Harvey plays a person pretending to be paralyzed from the waist down after supposedly having been run over by Carol. If he wins against her she and her husband will lose their house, their car, and their life savings. Carol comes to his door to apologize and says he deserves everything he can get from them. He mentions that he just spoke to his lawyer on the phone. She asks if she can use it to call her husband and then she notices that it is sitting on the shelf, too far for someone who is paralyzed from the waist down in a wheelchair to reach. She tickles his foot with a feather and if he’s paralyzed he shouldn’t feel anything. He starts laughing but says it’s at a joke he just remembered. She offers him the chicken soup she brought but he says he doesn’t trust her so she has some, begins choking and convulsing then falls motionless on the floor. He gets up from his wheelchair to investigate and Carol gets up to catch him in his scam. They struggle, then he falls backward ending up with a real broken neck and legs. 

            Kay Cole comes out and Carol, Harvey, Vicki and Tim are there to greet her and offer support because this is her TV debut. Carol says no matter how many live performances one has done the cameras are pretty frightening. Kay says to the audience, “Aren’t they nice?” Harvey tells her she should talk to the cameras and not the audience. The regular cast are arguing among themselves as to how Kay should proceed until Kay asserts that she’s just going to be herself and so they leave her to do her song. 

            Kay sings and dances to “Boys and Girls Like You and Me” by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II from the 1943 musical Oklahoma. 

            In the Mama’s Family sketch Mickey Hart (played by Tim) has his boss Ed, (played by Harvey) Ed’s wife Eunice (played by Carol), and her Mama (played by Vicki) over to his tiny place to celebrate his fifth anniversary of working for Ed. He says he’s never had any guests in his room before. Eunice says none of her’s and Ed’s wedding anniversaries have ever gotten Ed so hopped up as anticipating this party. Mama says she hasn’t seen anything this cozy since she visited her Aunt Elizabeth in her trailer. The family starts arguing and Mickey calls it horsing around and says he loves it because he never had a family. He ran away from his aunt when he was 14. Mickey has ordered Chinese food from Kim’s down the street so he leaves to pick it up. After he’s gone Mama complains about how she got all dressed up to sit in a rat trap. She says they shouldn’t have even come into this neighbourhood without a police escort. “There’s every colour of the rainbow livin on this block!” (That’s the first hint we’ve gotten in the history of this character that she’s racist). She says to Eunice, “I never expected anything like this! I thought your place was a disaster area!” Mama refuses to taste the dip that Mickey made and she chooses to drink her beer from the can. She says there’s not telling where his hands have been and what’s growing in his glasses. Ed argues that Mickey has been an asset to his business so Eunice asks if that’s true how come he cut $5 a week from her food budget. Mama picks up one of Mickey’s magazines and points out that he doesn’t even take the trouble to hide his smut. Ed tells her that National Geographics aren’t smut. Mama says she used to catch Eunice’s father looking at the pictures of naked women in National Geographics. Mickey returns with the Chinese takeout and says Kim was surprised he had company and called him the Lone Ranger except that in imitating Kim, Mickey switches the “L” and the “R”. Eunice is surprised that Mickey can afford to eat Chinese food since Ed never takes his family out to one. Mama says her Aunt Francis had a friend who went into a Chinese restaurant and never come back out. She adds that they probably drugged her and took her off in a boat or something. Mama says the food looks pretty good. Mickey says what’s a raise for if you can’t spend it on people you care for? Eunice asks, “A what?” Mickey repeats, “A raise”. Ed puts his hand on Mickey's shoulder to try to signal for him to shut up, but Mickey says, “Imagine how surprised I was when the chief laid an extra $5 a week on me!” Eunice blows up and Mama tells her to calm down. Eunice asks, “Are you married to a man who takes the bread out of his family’s mouths and gives it to a stooge?” Mama says she told her she was gonna come to grief if she married Ed. Eunice says she had no choice since living with her was a living hell. Mama says, “I didn’t come over to this god forsaken part of the city to sit in this pigsty and be abused!” Mickey says, “Wanna try the pea pods?” Mama says, “Shut up you sawed off little weirdo!” Mama storms out and says she’s taking a bus if she doesn’t get mugged first. Eunice tells Ed to drive them home. Ed tosses her the keys and says he’ll grab a taxi later. Eunice says, “That’s all I need is for you to throw away more money on account of this twerp!” Eunice tells Ed it’s either her or Mickey. Ed tells her to drive carefully. Eunice leaves and Ed sits down to enjoy Chinese food with Mickey. Eunice comes back in, puts all the Chinese food in a box and says, “At least my sons are gonna have a good meal!” and then she leaves. 

            Carol, Vicki and Kay sing a medley of rain songs. Carol sings “Here’s That Rainy Day” by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke from the 1953 musical Carnival In Flanders. Vicki sings the 1966 song “Cloudy” by Paul Simon and Bruce Woodley. Carol and Kay join in. Kay sings “Soon it’s Gonna Rain” by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt from the 1960 musical The Fantasticks. They all sing the 1932 song “Rain on the Roof” by Ann Ronell. Carol sings the 1928 song “I Get the Blues When It Rains” by Harry Stoddard and Marcy Klauber. The dancers lip sync the 1927 song “Rain” by Eugene Ford. Carol, Vicki and Kay sing the 1971 song “Rainy Days and Mondays” by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols. Kay and Carol sing the 1941 song “When the Sun Comes Out” by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. Carol finishes “Here’s That Rainy Day”. 

            Kay Cole was seen in a ballet class at the age of 6 by a director who asked her to audition for his show Me Candido. She made her Broadway debut as Sad Girl in Bye Bye Birdie in 1961. She originated Urchin in The Roar of the Greasepaint the Smell of the Crowd in 1965. She originated the role of Crissy in Hair in 1968. She played Mick Jagger and Joan Baez in National Lampoon’s Lemmings in 1973. She originated the role of Maggie in the 1975 Broadway production of A Chorus Line. She originated Strawberry Fields in the musical Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1975. She directed the plays Desperate Writers in 2007, and The Dining Room in 2009. She directed and choreographed I Only Have Eyes for You in 2005. She choreographed Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks in 2001 and 2003 and also the film adaptation. She released her debut solo album Souvenir in 2020.

July 8, 1996: I carried my mattress to the new place

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday night I carried my mattress from 111 Sheridan to the streetcar and transported it to my new place at 428 Queen West. I spent my first night in my new home.

Pierre Bernard: The Omnipotent Om

            On Monday morning I looked at the chords that I found yesterday for “La complainte de Bonnot” by Boris Vian and they were the same as what I found when I transcribed the lyrics a few years ago, except that there were chords for the intro among the new set. I copied those down but then I worked out the intro on my own. Tomorrow I’ll start on the first verse and see if I agree with the uploader’s chord choices. 

            I revised some more of my translation of “Ça” (That), a parody of the Serge Gainsbourg song “Je t’aime. Moi non plus (I Love You. Neither Do I)” based on the separation of the two voices that I got from the audio yesterday. 

            I weighed 89.15 kilos before breakfast. 

            I called P. Carito Plumbing and Heating about my leaking toilet. The guy said someone would come by at 11:00. Later though he left a message that his helper was having a very busy morning so he gave me his number and told me to call him in the early afternoon. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the second of four sessions and it always went out of tune. 

            I called the number Carito gave me and the guy said to call him at 13:30. I shaved and showered and then called him. He said he’d be over soon. 

            I weighed 89.9 kilos before lunch. 

            Alfredo came at around 14:00. I recognized him from when he bled my radiators a year and a half ago. He’s still huffing and puffing even though he’s the same age as I am. When he walked into my place he said, “Your landlord doesn’t do any maintenance”. He tightened something up on the toilet pipe at the back but said it’s mostly condensation caused by warm summer air hitting cold pipes. Whatever he did seems to have fixed the problem and he only charged me $30. 

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

            I weighed 89.3 kilos at 17:50. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:29. 

            I digitized side 2 of Tom Smarda’s home recorded cassette tape of his songs. I played the cassette with my Sony stereo cassette deck through my Scarlett audio interface to Audacity and then extracted it to my hard drive. Tomorrow I’ll digitize my tape of Rob Siciliano’s Heckle Night. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a strip of finger beef while watching season 10, episode 6 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup an 11 year old boy asks Carol what specials she’ll be having this year. She reminds him that he’s not supposed to be there if he’s under 14. She mentions her special with Beverly Sills at the Met. 

            Someone asks Carol to name her favourite actress. She says Glenda Jackson and Shirley MacLaine. 

            Someone asks how’s yoga? The woman says her sister has a class with Carol’s yoga teacher Susanne. This would be Suzanne Stern and some of her classes were held for a small group in Carol’s home. Suzanne was trained by Clara Spring, who co-wrote a book in 1959 called Yoga for Today with Madeleine Goss. Spring studied under Blanche Devries (a former showgirl). Blanche studied under her husband Pierre Bernard (Born Perry Baker) who came to be known as the Great Oom, the Omnipotent Oom, and the Magnificent Oom. He trained in yoga for 18 years under a wandering yogi from Calcutta named Sylvais Hamati who he met in Nebraska at the age of 13. They travelled to San Francisco and started The Tantrik Order. I’m assuming that Hamati died and Bernard took control of the Tantrik Order because there is no information about his teacher after that. He was essentially kicked out of San Francisco and relocated in a 120 acre compound in Nyack, New York where nighttime baseball games were played in drag. His students tended to be rich women (including some Vanderbilts) and his fees were high. He spent three months in prison for abduction of 18 year old Gertrude Leo who he told he was a god. There were accusations that he was running a white slave ring and rumours of ritualistic sex and opium use. His reputation as a rascal was perhaps tempered by his marriage to Blanche. He passed on his yoga empire to her when he died and she eventually relocated to New York City where she started The Living Arts Center. 

            Someone asks Carol if she plans to do another cameo appearance on All My Children. Carol played Verla Grubbs, the long lost and secret daughter of Langley Wallingford. She says she’d love to but they shoot the show in New York and she would have to have an occasion to travel there from LA. Carol announces that they are going to find out that Kitty’s mother isn’t her real one but an actor whose been hired to keep Kitty away from Link. 

            Someone asks how many brothers does Eunice have. So far there have been three: One was Philip played by Roddy McDowell, another was Jack played by Tommy Smothers, and a third was played by Alan Alda. 

            In the Mr. Tudball-Mrs. Wiggins sketch, Mr. Tudball has a buzzer to unlock his office placed under Mrs. Wiggins’s desk. He shows her a yellow badge and says for her not to buzz anybody in unless they are wearing one. He buzzes her into his office to show her how it works and after she goes in she closes the door and sits at his desk. He tries to buzz himself in but it has to be buzzing when it’s opened and he can’t reach the buzzer and the door at the same time. Finally shouts for her to open the door. He pretends he’s a salesman coming in to see Tudball without a badge and asks if he can see Mr. Tudball. She looks through the window at Tudball’s office and tells him Tudball isn’t in. He tries it again and pretends he’s both the salesman and Tudball and Tudball says he can come in so she buzzes him in. He tries to explain that she’s not supposed to do that but says it’s like trying to teach a mermaid to do the splits. He makes it clear he doesn’t want anyone to come in without a badge then, no longer pretending to be a salesman he asks her to open the door. She asks to see his badge but his badge is in his office so she refuses to buzz him in. He tells her to go get him a coffee and while she’s gone her opens her office window to go out on the ledge to his office window to get into his office and get his badge but his window is locked. Wiggins comes back and closes the window and locks it. She sees Tudball is gone so she goes to lunch, leaving Tudball stuck on the ledge. 

            Ted plays Mr. Kramer who is the patient in an operating room with Vicki as the nurse. Harvey is the doctor and he arrives with Roddy who plays a filmmaker wanting to shoot the operation. Kramer is given knockout gas with a mask and a bubble bag that expands and contracts when he breathes. Roddy tells Kramer to take quicker breaths to make it more dramatic. After several changes Roddy wants to make the surgery more exciting Harvey says they are now going in for the gallstones. Roddy says that’s not an interesting enough surgery. So Harvey says to Kramer, “Your first name is Harry isn’t it? Have you ever thought of changing it to Harriet?” Kramer runs out the door. 

            Vicki sings a very depressing song called “Hollywood Seven” by Gloria Sklerov and Harry Lloyd about a person who moves to Hollywood to be a star and puts herself in a hotel while waiting for the call. She starts to run out of money and begins to turn tricks until one of them murders her. It was an Australian top 20 hit for Australian singer John English in 1976. 

            In London, Carol and Roddy enter an elevator together. They plays the same characters they played in a previous sketch in which their dialogue consists of single words for each person. They recognize each other and he reminds her that they already had an affair and even though they are both married they decide they would like to meet for another picnic but their schedules conflict. 

            Carol and Harvey play a couple with wicked hangovers after a party they don’t remember. But Harvey finds a bra and realizes he must have had sex with someone at the party. He confesses to Carol that he was with someone but recalls she was a dog. Vicki comes in without a hangover and tells Carol she remembers everything that happened and tells her that she and Harvey had sex. Now Carol is relieved but not so happy about the “dog” part. 

            Carol, Harvey, and Roddy do a musical tribute to silent films that is very similar to one that was done in season 5, episode 3 with Steve Lawrence instead of Roddy. Carol plays Buster Keaton and Roddy and Harvey play Laurel and Hardy in competing ice cream businesses, with each sabotaging the other’s and with the Keystone cops played by the Ernie Flatt Dancers.

July 7, 1996: My daughter and I carried a few things to my new place

Thirty years ago today 

            On Sunday my daughter and I carried a couple of my things to the new place at 428 Queen West. Marjorie told us where the nearest playground was. It was a little further away than the one near my old place. It was in Alexandra Park off Bathurst and south of Dundas.

Madeline Kahn

            On Sunday morning I worked out the chords for half of the instrumental; intro “La complainte de Bonnot” by Boris Vian. But then I realized that I’d forgotten to do a search for the chords online and discovered that there is at least one set. So tomorrow I’ll transcribe those and see if they’re any better than what I worked out. 

            I listened to the audio of “Ça” (That), a parody of the Serge Gainsbourg song “Je t’aime. Moi non plus (I Love You. Neither Do I)” while reading the transcription and saw that Sonix hadn’t always separated the two speakers properly. I put the female voice in italics to distinguish it. The proper separation sometimes changes the meaning of the text. 

            I weighed 89.05 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since June 5. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the first of four sessions and as usual it was out of tune all the time. 

            Around midday I applied the second coat of the “crazy in love” pink hue to the inside halves of three of the four floral reliefs on my future bathroom mirror frame. Either Tuesday or Wednesday I’ll finish the pink and then later in the week I’ll touch up the rest of the frame with blue bliss. Maybe next Sunday I’ll mount the mirror. 

            I weighed 90.15 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 89.15 kilos at 17:40. That’s the easiest I’ve been on the scale in the evening since May 20. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:50. 

            I recorded side 1 of a home made recording on cassette by Tom Smarda of him singing and playing his songs. I played it through my audio interface to Audacity and then extracted it to my hard drive. Tomorrow I’ll digitize side 2. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, french fries and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 10, episode 4 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup someone asks about Carol’s garage sale. I assume they sold items from the show. She says they made $16.000 for cancer research. 

            A kid named Jackie gets Carol to sign her Nothing Book. Apparently Nothing Books were hardcover books first published in 1974 containing 160 blank pages. Carol asks her age and she has to think for a second before she answers that she’s 14. Carol says the kids have to say they are 14 otherwise they won’t be allowed in. 

            A boy who also says he’s 14 asks her from whom she inherited her gorgeous legs. She asks if he’s interested in being with an older woman. 

            A little girl who’s 3 or 4 comes up to the stage and says, “Hi Aunt Carol!” Carol doesn’t recognize her at first. But she says her name is Rosie. Carol also waves to a niece named Rachel. These can’t be Carol’s sister Chrissie’s children because Chrissie’s children are Jennifer and Max. None of Carol’s husbands’ siblings seem to have had children with those names either. Maybe it’s a situation where the children of a friend called her Aunt Carol. AI says it was the child of a crew member. 

            In the Mama’s Family sketch Eunice is rehearsing a play called Mary Queen of Scotland and the director, Mavis Danton, who’s been in the movies, is coming over to coach Eunice. Mavis arrives (played by Madeline Kahn). Ed asks her if she was really in the movies. She says after one movie in that phony Hollywood world she told herself to get out before they destroy her. Mama asks what movie she was in and Mavis says Cat Women on Mars (obviously a play on the real film Cat Women on the Moon). Mama asks if Ingrid Bergman was in it. Mama says she crossed Ingrid off her list in 1949 when she went and married that foreigner. She’s referring to Roberto Rosellini because she got pregnant by him while married to someone else. It was an enormous scandal especially because Bergman had played the holy Joan of Arc. But it’s weird that Mama would call Rosellini a foreigner when Bergman was Swedish. As they are about to rehearse, Mavis tells Eunice they are looking for numbed despair mixed with doomed frivolity. Mavis plays Mary Queen of Scots and Eunice plays her lady in waiting. Eunice is being too forceful so Mavis tells her to stop and be a butterfly. Then she tells her to stop being a butterfly and let the lightness remain. Mavis asks Mama and Ed to read some parts. Eunice doesn’t want them to but they are into it. Mama plays Queen Elizabeth I. Mavis reads, “A bastard profanes the English throne!” Mama asks, “What kind of smut is this play?” Mavis gets more and more frustrated with Eunice’s bad acting and inability to take direction. She says she never thought she would stoop so low as to cast an illiterate, no talent pea brain just because she bought 100 tickets. Mavis leaves. Ed asks how much 100 tickets cost and Eunice says, $200. Ed says that’s their life savings. Eunice says she can sell the tickets to her friends. Mama says she hasn’t got 3 friends. Ed is angry but Mama says, “Can’t you see Eunice is upset? Poor baby she’s failed again!” 

            Carol introduces her very good friend Madeline Kahn. Then Carol admits that they haven’t actually had time yet to become very good friends because they really just met. Carol wrote Madeline a fan letter after seeing her in Young Frankenstein. They corresponded for a while before they met. They sing the song “Friend” by Larry Grossman and Hal Hackady from the 1975 musical Snoopy. 

            Ted plays Mr. Tudball and Harvey plays a security guard in the building where Tudball does business. As usual Ted and Harvey crack each other up just from looking at or listening to each other. Tudball always has bad luck with the coffee machine in the hallway. It gives him coffee with no cup, coffee with a bottomless cup, and coffee with an upside down cup. When he starts hitting the machine Harvey threatens him and when Tudball continues, Harvey grabs him. Tudball takes Harvey’s gun and points it at him to hold him back. Tudball says he’s going to put a hole in who’s responsible and Harvey thinks he means him but Tudball shoots the machine. Suddenly the machine drops a proper cup of coffee. Harvey takes his gun back and leaves. But before Tudball can take the coffee Mrs. Wiggins comes out and takes it. 

            Carol says fifty years ago they had That’s Entertainment. This is part 86. 

            Harvey and Tim play two elderly stars reminiscing. 

            Vickie imitates Ann Wilson and does a tap dance. 

            Harvey and Madeline do a parody of Nelson Eddy and Jeannette McDonald singing a parody of “Indian Love Call”. 

            Tim plays a tuxedoed dancer with top hat and cane but he obviously can’t dance and that’s the joke. The other dancers throw their canes and hats down in anger and walk away. 

            They then show the clip from season 4, episode 8 in which Carol did a parody of Esther Williams’s swimming musicals, sometimes singing underwater, “Blub blub”. 

            Madeline Kahn trained as an opera singer in university and also earned a degree in Speech Therapy. She studied singing with Beverly Peck Johnson. She made her stage debut as a chorus girl in a revival of Kiss Me Kate. She made her Broadway debut in Leonard Sillman’s New Faces of 1968. She made her film debut in the 1968 short De Duva. She made her feature film debut in What’s Up Doc? She co-starred in Paper Moon and Blazing Saddles and was nominated for Academy Awards for both movies. She co-starred in High Anxiety, History of the World Part 1, The Cheap Detective, Clue, Young Frankenstein, At Long Last Love, The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, Won Ton Ton, Simon, happy Birthday Gemini, First Family, Slapstick of Another Kind, My Little Pony, An American Tail, Betsy’s Wedding, Mixed Nuts, and Judy Berlin. She was nominated for Tony Awards for her performances in Born Yesterday, In the Boom Boom Room, and in On the Twentieth Century. She won a Tony for her performance in The Sisters Rosensweig. She won an Emmy for her performance in the after school special Wanted: The Perfect Guy. She created, produced, wrote and starred in the short lived sitcom Oh Madeline. She appeared on Sesame Street 12 times. She was in 14 episodes of Mr. President, 13 episodes of New York News, and 84 episodes of Cosby.

July 6, 1996: I took my daughter to see the new place

Thirty years ago today 

            On Saturday Nancy dropped off our daughter at my place and I took her to see the new place at 428 Queen West. We discovered that out the back door was a cool rooftop where we could play. I gave Marjorie the rent money.