July 23, 1996: Brian and I rehearsed at my new place

Thirty years ago today

             On Tuesday Brian Haddon came over to my new place and we rehearsed for our upcoming gigs. Later I hosted as always my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage in the Art Bar of the Gladstone Hotel.

Busby Berkeley

            On Monday morning I revised my translation of the third verse of “La complainte de Bonnot” by Boris Vian. 

            I posted “I Love You. So Do I”, my translation of “Je t’aime. Moi aussi” by Serge Gainsbourg on Facebook and then looked for the next Serge Gainsbourg song that I’ve yet to translate. The last song listed in my 1972 Gainsbourg document is “Une chanson de cour” but it was just written for a TV show skit and doesn’t seem to exist online. I looked in the 1973 Gainsbourg file and found only one unfinished translation. That’s “Shylock” and it was written for a TV show called Top a, starring Petula Clark in that episode. She and Gainsbourg do the song as a comical duet. There’s a video of it on YouTube so I downloaded it and looked for an app to transcribe it because my free minutes on Sonix have been used up. I tried Turbo Scribe and it claimed to have transcribed the audio but I couldn’t find the text. The same thing happened with Quickwerx and Whisper. I finally got it done with an app called Eleven Labs. I copied the text and I’ll have a look tomorrow, then edit it and compare it to the audio. 

            I weighed 90.8 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since June 15.

            I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune until after I sat down and played part of a song while sitting in front of my computer. For some reason that end or level of the room causes all my guitars to go out of tune. 

            I weighed 92.25 kilos before lunch. I think that’s the most I’ve ever weighed since I’ve been weighing myself regularly. 

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

            I weighed 91.6 kilos at 18:10. February 20 was the last evening when I was so cruel to the scale.

            For the 12th day in a row I was a day behind in my journal and was still behind at suppertime. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a reheated T-bone steak while watching season 11, episode 6 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            In the Tudball-Wiggins sketch, Mr. Tudball is preparing his offices for painting. Mrs. Wiggins arrives three hours late and says it’s because it took a long time to get into her overalls. She takes off her leopard print coat and is wearing a very tight pair of coveralls with high heels. She asks the time and he says noon so she starts walking out the door to go for lunch but he makes her come back because there’s no lunch today. She suggests he take off his watch before they get started and he does. She takes it from him but then drops it into the paint bucket. He gets her to paint the wall to the right of where he’s painting and she starts painting his right hand where he’s leaning. She climbs the ladder in her tight coveralls and stilettos and needs Tudball’s help getting up there. He says “From the back you look like Dolly Parton from the front”. He holds the tray for her while she dips the roller but as she swings her arm up and over to reach the wall she rolls it over his face. He shouts that she’s wasting paint when they have all of these walls to do. She swings up her arm in surprise, knocking Tudball and the paint bucket across the room and now all the paint is gone. 

            Carol and Dick introduce Ken Berry. He does a song and dance number that might be called “Girls” with the male dancers. They are portraying miners waiting for women to arrive and when the girls come they all do a dance. One girl is not dancing as she holds a suitcase with her name “Emily”. Ken comes and dances with her as a recording of his voice sings “Emily” by Johnny Mandel and Johnny Mercer from the 1964 film The Americanization of Emily. 

            Dick plays a once famous piano player who is now out of work and Carol plays his dedicated wife. It’s winter and they are burning all of their things in the fireplace to keep warm. He’s burning all the newspaper clippings that Carol saved of his concerts when they come across a $50,000 insurance policy on his hands. He decides to injure his hands to collect. He asks her to bring the hot poker from the fireplace down on his hand. She turns away and swings around to say she can’t do it but in doing so ends up poking him in the ribs. He next asks her to drop his bowling ball on his hand. She pulls it down from a high shelf but it’s heavy and her arms swing with it to hit him in the left knee. He asks her to try again but she can’t do it and throws the ball down but it hits his right foot. Next he puts his hand in the door jamb and tells her to slam the door on it. But before doing it she says, “Honey?” and he brings his head forward to ask “What?” then she slams the door on his head. Then they get a call from his agent saying they want him in Vegas at double Liberace’s salary. With all of his injuries he goes to sit at the piano to start to play badly, so Carol slams the keyboard cover on his hands and calls the insurance company. 

            They do a movie spoof called Stolen Serenade but I don’t know what movie they are actually parodying but it’s maybe the 1939 musical Broadway Serenade because it’s directed by Busby Berkeley and Tim plays a parody of that director named Buzzy Berkeley. Vicki, Ken, and Dick play an act called Winnie, Werner, and Woe. They sing a song that warns not to grab a rose by the thorn. Buzzy tells Winnie he’s going to make her a star but the star of the show Lily du Lane (played by Carol) arrives. She tells them they can’t be in Buzzy’s show but she wants their song for her own act. She says she’ll make it the biggest hit on Broadway. Woe is all for it but Werner argues they wrote the song for Winnie and if she can’t sing it no one can. Lily kisses Woe and brings him over to her side. Werner angrily tears the song music in half and gives half to Woe then he and Winnie leave. Woe regrets losing his friends but Lily introduces him to two new partners: her and a bottle of champagne. Six months later he’s a slave to the bottle and Lily as he serves as her piano player. She finds him disgusting and is tired of singing his rose song. Opens for Lily and does a song while drunk. She makes her entrance and wants him to lift her onto the piano but it’s a real struggle for him to get her up there. She sings the rose song while Woe accompanies her but he keeps seeing tiny versions of Winnie and Warner dancing on the piano and singing the song. Five years later Winnie and Werner are ragged beggars singing on the street in the winter in front of the theatre where Lily is doing her show. They sing the rose song and rich passersby condescend to throw them a coin. As they are trying to pick it up before it freezes to the sidewalk Lily and Woe come walking along and Woe trips over Winnie. The three embrace in a happy reunion. Lily gives Woe an ultimatum and suddenly he becomes sober. He hands Lily his bottle and says, “Who wants to live in luxury and comfort when he can starve with his friends?” Lily takes a drink and leaves them to go inside. Woe and Werner haven’t written a song since they split up but now that they are back together they are inspired. They write a dance song about shivering and shaking in the cold called “The Slush”. Buzzy happens to be passing by and thinks it’s sensational so he immediately puts them in a show. Lily comes out on stage drunk but Buzzy carries her off. Winnie, Werner, and Woe are now Broadway stars and they do a charity benefit at a hospital for the poor where they sing for terminally ill patients so they can die happy. There they find among the patients Lily. As Lily lies there coughing Winnie and Werner laugh at her but Woe says they should be compassionate, but then he grabs some snow from the window and rubs it in her face while they all laugh. Lily says, “My pulse just stopped, call the doctor!” The trio thinks that line is a great idea for a song entitled “Call the Doctor I’m IN Love” and so they start to sing and dance to it. At the end of the song Lily dies and her bed begins rising up and floating above the room and Lily sits up in her room and flaps her angel wings. Carol sings her theme song from the floating bed while coughing. Then the cast crawl into bed with her.

            During the 1920s Busby Berkeley worked as a dance director on Broadway. His earliest films were Eddie Cantor musicals and he was less concerned with choreography than with having his dancers form kaleidoscopic patterns. He was not the first to do that but elevated it to a high art. He directed dance routines for Florenz Ziegfeld’s shows A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and Whoopie. Then he did the choreography for the film version. His short dance segments often cost more than the films in which they appeared. His fame skyrocketed during the depression with the film adaptations of five musicals: 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, Golddiggers of 1933, Dames, and Fashions of 1934. When musicals lost their appeal he turned to directing dramas like They Made Me a Criminal and Forty Little Mothers. He directed the “I Got Rhythm” segment of Girl Crazy. In the 1940s he designed the finales for Esther Williams movies.

July 22, 1996: Keith's tip blew out the truck window

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I worked for Keith Anderson Moving and Storage. Keith was driving the truck and in the end the customer gave us a tip. Keith kept $5 for himself, which I though was shitty of him since he owned the company. He put it in his shirt pocket and it seemed like poetic justice when we drove over a breezy bridge and the wind blew his bill out the window.

Robert Illes

            On Sunday morning I revised my translation of the first chorus of “La complainte de Bonnot” by Boris Vian. 

            I published on my Christian’s Translations blog “Je t’aime. Moi aussi” and my translation “I Love You. So Do I”. On Monday I’ll post my translation on Facebook and then look for the next Serge Gainsbourg song that I’ve failed to translate. The last song listed in my 1972 Gainsbourg document is “Une chanson de cour” but it was just written for a TV show skit and doesn’t seem to exist online. So tomorrow I’ll start searching in the 1973 file. 

            I weighed 90.45 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since June 29. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune more than half the time. 

            I met my friend Brian Haddon in front of my place at 14:00 and we walked over to The Mezz for lunch. We sat on the patio where unfortunately even there they had a big screen installed for the World Cup. But it wasn’t too bad until the last half hour we were there when it got noisy. We had poached eggs Mexican style under refried beans and guacamole with home fries and tortilla chips baked in cheese and it was very good. Just as our other favourite place The Artful Dodger stopped serving Creemore on tap, so has the Mezz. I told him that I’ve been listening to Sandy Denny and he was surprised to hear that she was once with Strawbs. He asked if that was before or after Rick Wakeman was in Strawbs and I was surprised that he had been a member. 

            After we left I walked Brian to Dufferin but once I saw that his bus was coming and that he’d be able to catch it I said goodbye because I was bursting with the need to pee. I went into the basement of the Burger Lab but their washroom was out of order. I was really worried that I was going to pee my pants. I walked up to the Alexandria Falafel and begged the guy to let me use the washroom. He just said to make sure the light was off when I was done. He was also occupied with the World Cup final and indifferent to me when I said thank you. 

            When I got home I immediately took a siesta. 

            I weighed 91.1 kilos at 19:05. 

            I was a day behind in my journal for the 11th day in a row. 

            I made pizza on multigrain sandwich bread with rosée tomato sauce, tomato pesto, wedge oven fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching season 11, episode 2 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            I was disappointed that Harvey Korman had been replaced by Dick Van Dyke for the final season. I like Dick Van Dyke but Harvey Korman was a much better sketch comedian. 

            Tim Conway plays Danny Draft, Private Eye and we find him sleeping at his desk in an office that is carpeted with beer cans. There’s a knock on the door and wakes up to answer the phone. The knocking continues so he reports it to the operator. Then he realizes it’s the door but seems to have forgotten the location of his office door. He opens one door and it’s a closet with an avalanche of beer cans. He opens another and the same thing happens. What office even has one closet let alone two? It’s very hard to walk on his floor because of all the beer cans but he stumbles and slips and slides to the correct door and Carol comes in wearing sunglasses and a scarf. She says she has something to say and no one else can hear. He says he’ll go outside then. She says they’re trying to kill her and she needs his help. He asks why he would help to kill her when he doesn’t even know her. She says she has $1000 to pay him and he says, “That’ll cover the first year”. She says she’ll be lucky if she lives for a week so he says she’d better pay in advance. She says there are other ways to pay. “When was the last time you saw a body like this?” “When I went from bottles to cans”. “I suppose you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be with a woman”, “Not yet but I’m workin on it.” She says she thinks the killer followed her there and Danny looks out the window. Meanwhile we see that the killer is hiding in the closet. She shows Danny a ticking package she received. He takes it into the other closet, which he calls the bomb room. It blows up and he comes crashing through a window that wasn’t there before above the door. There’s a knock on the door and so he hides Carol in the closet where the killer is hiding and then answers it. It’s a couple looking for the sex clinic down the hall. When he comes back to the closet he’s holding his gun and it accidentally goes off, shooting through the door and killing the murderer. Then he accidentally shoots himself. 

            Steve Lawrence sings the 1974 song “Every Time I Sing a Love Song” by Jon English. 

            Then Dick Van Dyke comes out to greet him. That’s a first as it’s always been Carol, so it’s like Dick is not just a member of the cast but also a co-host. Dick tells Steve he’d give anything to be able to sing like him. Steve says anybody can do it and he can show him. He says, “Who do you think taught Eydie?” (A reference to his wife Eydie Gormé and obviously a joke since she was 7 years older than him and they were both professional singers before they met on The Tonight Show). Dick says, “I think you’re in a lot of trouble!” Steve says, “You’ve got to take a deep breath. It all starts in the diaphragm. You’ve got to bring it up from the diaphragm well behind the mask. Dick tries it and obviously deliberately fumbles, then insists again that he just can’t sing. Steve says he finds it hard to believe because Dick has so much rhythm. They duet on the song “Sing” by Marvin Hamlisch and from the 1975 musical A Chorus Line. When Dick finally sings a note it turns out to be a recording. 

            They do a series of skits of TV stars holding out for more money between seasons. 

            Dick plays a star confronting his producer (played by Tim) with his demands. Rick wants $250,000 an episode, a Rolls Royce, a waterbed in his dressing room, and 12.5% of the profits. Tim says they’ll just have to replace him but Dick laughs and points out that his picture is on all the lunchboxes, the posters, and T-shirts. If he tries to replace him the public will drop the show. Tim says someone auditioning to replace him is right outside in the waiting room. Dick looks and sees it’s Dick Van Dyke. Dick comes back and tears up his demands. Tim tells him to get him a coffee and shine his shoes. 

            Carol and Steve play two married actors who have already quit their shows. Carol says there are other things besides show business. They say they don’t want to be late. Carol takes off her gown and is wearing the uniform of a diner server and Steve puts on a chauffeur’s hat. 

            Dick plays a director at a table read with three actors played by Vicki, Tim, and Carol. When it’s time for Vicki’s line she says she’s walking off the show unless she gets a $2000 a week raise. She says she’s the only one on the show with her own comic book so without her it’s sunk. Dick gives her the raise and they continue the rehearsal. When it comes to Tim’s line he also says he’s walking. He says he wants a raise too and argues that the show is called “Here’s Father” and he plays the father. Dick agrees and he gets the raise. When it’s Carol’s line she gives Dick a look and before she speaks he tells her she can have a raise. But Carol says she wants one dollar more than anyone else on the show. Dick agrees but then Vicki says she wants a soda fountain in her dressing room. Tim says he wants a door to door limo and Carol says she wants a sauna in her dressing room. Then a bell rings and Dick days, “Class dismissed! Tomorrow I’ll teach you how to storm off a set, throw a tantrum, and lock yourself in your dressing room.” 

            They do a parody of the 1936 musical San Francisco. Dick plays Whitey who owns a small show bar. He is rehearsing with a leading lady when a straight laced looking woman named Fran Sancisco (played by Carol) comes in. Fran goes onstage and asks Whitey for a singing job. Whitey tells her he already has a female singer. Fran “accidentally” drops her suitcase on the other woman’s foot and then again on her other foot. Whitey wants to see Fran’s legs but she says, “No one has ever seen my legs!” He asks if she’s got good legs and she says, “I don’t know. I’ve never seen them either.” Whitey punches the piano player and explains to Fran that he always socks people he likes. A female dancer asks him for the time and after telling her he punched her. She walks away knowing he likes her. Whitey gives Fran a song to sing but she does it in a very formal style so he has to teacher her how to sing with pep and to say “Would’ja” instead of “Would you”. Tim plays Father Melon the singing priest and he sings every one of his lines. Every time Whitey tries to kiss Fran, Melon appears between them. He warns Fran never to kiss Whitey because something awful will happen. A week later Fran gives her first performance and she sings a parody of the “Theme from San Francisco” but in her formal style that the audience hates. Whitey comes out rips off one side of her gown. She then sings “San Francisco is a two faced woman ones a devil (she turns to show herself in her corset) and one’s a saint (she turns to show the gown) / San Francisco is a two faced woman, One’s an angel and the other one ain’t”. The audience loves it. Fran receives a note from Robert Snob (played by Steve) who is an upper crust type from Knob Hill. She meets Snob and when he’s wearing his pince-nez he speaks in an effeminate voice but when he takes it off his voice is deep and masculine. He tells Fran she shouldn’t be singing at Whitey’s place but in grand opera. He wants her to co-star in his opera. Whitey kicks Snob out and tells him not to come back. He tells Fran he loves her but she says he just wants to use her. He punches her though and now she knows he really does love her. He tries to kiss her but Melon swings in on a rope. Fran is dating Snob and comes to his lavish home in Knob Hill. He kisses her and she immediately falls asleep. He introduces Fran to his mother (played by Vickie) who he kisses on the cheek and puts to sleep. Mumsie tells Fran that she once fell for someone like Whitey but then she met Robert’s father and chose money and social standing over looks and passion. She indicates her son and says, “If you pick this yutz you’re out of your gourd!” Snob plays for Fran his new opera that takes place in Spain. He says it’s about a Romani woman who sells cigarettes. Fran asks the character’s name and Snob asks what she thinks of Carmen. Snob says Carmen rushes into the square with a rose in her teeth and he sings and plays her song. Fran points out that it’s a classic opera called Carmen and he thinks she complimenting him. Then Whitey arrives and the two men have a tug of war over Fran. Mumsie shouts out that her son still sucks his thumb and wets the bed. Fran declares she won’t be with either of them and says she’s leaving San Francisco. But after a few weeks she returns to Whitey. He kisses her and the great San Francisco earthquake begins. Everything is falling down around them and Fran says there is only one force in the world that can stop the disaster. Snob arrives, Fran says for him to kiss her and it puts the quake to sleep. Whitey punches Snob because he likes him now. The cast sings the San Francisco song and when Fran hits the high note the quake happens in reverse and everything comes back together. 

            One of the writers for The Carol Burnett Show was Robert Illes, who excelled in creative writing in high school. He studied Telecommunications and Journalism at the University of Southern California. He became a comedy newscaster for the KUSC student radio station. He co-hosted with James R. Stein the Stein and Illes Radio Show for three years and became very popular with the underground FM audience. At the same time they took a course in YV writing and got work for the Tennessee Ernie Ford Show. After their radio show was canceled they continued as TV writers. In 1972 they were hired for The New Bill Cosby Show. They co-wrote a Lili Tomlin Special for which they won Emmys. They wrote three episodes of Sanford and Son and created the character of Woody. They wrote for Van Dyke and Company and Fernwood 2Night for which they were nominated for Emmy Awards. Their work on The Carol Burnett Show earned them their second Emmy. They executive produced the sitcom Amen. Illes went solo in 1994 and wrote produced the sitcom Sister Sister. He co-created the series Goode Behaviour. He wrote several episodes of Family Matters. He married Barbara Pariot who was the voice of Valerie on Josie and the Pussycats. 

            The homeless guy who pretty much lives outside of my building was doing a whole spontaneous performance with two voices responding to each other one low and one high and in rhythm.

July 21, 1996: My daughter and I played with her action figures

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday my daughter and I played with her action figures on the back roof of my new place.

Billy Corgan

            On Saturday morning I revised my translation of the first two verses of “La complainte de Bonnot” by Boris Vian. 

            I finished translating “Je t’aime. Moi aussi” and ran through singing and playing “I Love You. So Do I”. I uploaded the song to my Christian’s Translations blog and on Sunday I’ll begin preparing it for publication. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice and it went out of tune constantly. 

            Around midday I rode to No Frills where the grapes were on sale but I had to go through them all to find seven bags that were firm and those were only the green ones. I also bought a large pack of blueberries, some bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar.

            I weighed 91.2 kilos at 14:25. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of cold tea and lemonade. 

            I took a siesta and didn’t wake up until almost 17:00 so it was too late to take a bike ride. 

            I weighed 91.5 kilos at 17:15, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since February 20.

            I’ve been a day behind in my journal for 10 days and was still behind at suppertime. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with rosée tomato sauce, tomato pesto, wedge oven fries, and five year old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 10, episode 23 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup someone asks Carol if Bob Mackie designs both hers and Cher’s clothes how come Carol doesn’t show her belly button. Carol says she doesn’t have one. 

            Someone tells Carol the public would love to see her kids on her show. Carol says her kids don’t want to be on her show and even if they did she wouldn’t put them on. She says, “My old lady didn’t have a television show of her own so let them get theirs”. 

            The first sketch is a Tudball-Wiggins story. Tudball is uncharacteristically smoking a cigar but it serves a purpose later on. He calls Wiggins into his office and she says she’s tired from Christmas preparations. Tudball tells her that Christmas in nine months away. She says she knows that but likes to do her shopping now so she won’t be tired then. Tudball says if he doesn’t have a fire safety program for his office his insurance company will raise his rates. They are sending an adjustor over today so they have to run through their fire safety program before he gets here. Wiggins says they don’t have a fire safety program but Wiggins says they do now. He asks what she would do in case of a fire. She says she’d go to the fire escape through the window. He tells her they don’t have a fire escape in the office. He gives her a whistle to blow if there’s a fire but she can’t blow it because she’s too tired because of Christmas coming in nine months. He says after she blows the whistle she has to get down on her hands and knees crawl out of the office and then down the hall to the fire escape. Tudball says for them to practice the drill. Wiggins has a hard time getting onto her hands and knees because of her tight skirt. Once she does she moves very slowly. He tells her to study the plan and then he puts his cigar in the ashtray on her desk. She puts the cigar in the trash can beside her desk. Then Goodman the insurance adjustor (played by Harvey) arrives. He goes into Tudball’s office and Tudball asks if his company has any comedy insurance (Harvey chuckles and says, “Right on!”). Meanwhile there’s smoke coming from Wiggins’s waste basket. She sees it and tries but fails to blow the whistle. She goes into Tudball’s office and struggles to get down on her hands and knees. Then Tudball sees the smoke, blows his whistle and also gets to his knees. While they are crawling, Goodman calmly walks over to Wiggens’s desk and puts out the fire with a pitcher of water that’s there. Goodman says if he hadn’t been there the fire would have gotten out of control while they were crawling around on the floor. Tudball asks if he’s going to raise his rates but Goodman says he’s cancelling his policy altogether. 

            Ken Berry does a tap dance routine with the Ernie Flatt Dancers to “I Got Rhythm” by George Gershwin. The cutest dancer, Toni Kaye is featured as his partner. Tap is impressive but it’s not that interesting or entertaining. 

            Harvey and Tim play a Foreign Legion captain and private lost in the Sahara Desert. Tim is out of water and says he can’t go on. Just then he sees a bar with tables and chairs. Harvey tells him it’s not real and that it’s just a desert rock formation. Then Vickie in a low cut top, a short skirt, and high blonde hair comes out with a tray and shouts, “Last call for alcohol!” Tim shows Vicki to Harvey but Harvey tells him it’s only a cactus. Tim wants to know if the Legion would approve of a mixed marriage between a Protestant and a cactus. Tim orders a Tom Collins and Vickie brings it but Harvey takes it away, throws it in his face, and says it’s not real. Harvey pulls out his gun and says he’ll have to put him out of his misery. So Tim says the captain is right and that it was all just rocks and a cactus. Harvey puts his gun away. Then Vicki brings Tim another drink but before he can drink it Vicki’s husband comes out and grabs him. He accuses him of making out with his wife and threatens to punch him out. Harvey says he sees their troops in the distance but Tim says it’s just cacti. Tim pulls his gun and shoots Harvey. Then he goes to the bar again where now the tables and chairs are rocks and Vickie really is a cactus. But there are no cacti in the Sahara desert. 

            They do a parody of Babes in Arms called Babes in Barns. Spunky (played by Ken Berry) comes home to tell his parents (played by Harvey and Vicki) that he sold his first song. Pops punches him and tells him to bring them “A”s in Geometry and not to talk about show business. Meanwhile there are movers taking the furniture from their house because they are behind on their payments. Moms says they are going to have to move out. Spunky says they can have his song money and Pops smacks him again. But it turns out that Spunky’s parents are an old vaudeville act called “Pops and Flossie McGillacuddy” and even though they haven’t performed in over 20 years they are still waiting to make a come back. They do an old style song and dance. Spunky and his parents go in the house, then Spunk’s neighbour Dodie (played by Carol) arrives outside and sings a song about loving her neighbour when her neighbour doesn’t love her. Spunky comes out and tells her why he’s unhappy. She suggests her play her his song and there just happens to be a piano on the porch. The song is about being old enough to know about love and young enough to do it. It turns into a song and dance that gathers a crowd of mostly their fellow teenagers (played by the Earnie Flatt Dancers). Spunky decides they can put on a show to make money and they’ll use the barn as the theatre. They all do Spunky’s song together as they make preparations to fix up the barn. But they still need money to put on the show and one of the kids, DeDee (played by Toni Kaye one of the dancers) is the only one whose father is rich. She says her father would back the show if she could be a star and so Spunk agrees. He has to break it to Dodie and her heart is broken but she still puts everything into fixing the barn and managing the show. The opening number has Spunky and Dee Dee doing a jitterbug and singing about Rhythm, Romance and Razamataz. Pops discovers there is a show going on in his born and says he’s going to shut it down but Dodie convinces him and Flossie to perform so they do their number. But in the middle of the show DeeDee abandons it out of boredom and leaves for the Riviera. Everybody convinces Dodie to take DeeDee’s place as Cleopatra and so she does. She is holding an asp as if it’s a microphone as she dances and sings about killing herself because her lover Tony has gone off to fight a war. But Marc Antony arrives in in Roman armour but wearing a fedora. They sing Spunky’s song together. Dodie tries to do the splits like DeeDee but can only go halfway. 

            I’ve been listening to the Smashing Pumpkins. They’re musically interesting and I pick up sometimes a Black Sabbath influence, which front person Billy Corgan has confirmed. They are apparently his favourite band. The Smashing Pumpkins remind me of Nirvana but without Cobain’s more interesting lyrics. As a poet I would choose Cobain over Corgan whose lyrics are surprisingly and disappointingly conventional and mostly about boring subjects like love. He also effects a fake southern US accent when he sings. Although his voice is somewhat nasal it does have a lot of intensity. In 1988 Corgan started making Goth-Pop demos with guitarist James Iha. They met D’arcy Wretzky and formed The Smashing Pumpkins using a drum machine for percussion. When they needed a drummer to land a bigger gig they recruited Jimmy Chamberlin. As is often the case with bands, their third album was the best and the song “1979” is their only universally familiar hit. In 2004 Corgan published a book of poetry called Blinking With Fists but the title is more interesting than the poetry. Corgan bought The National Wrestling Alliance for some reason. One can tell by some of his lyrics he’s a Christian and he’s confirmed that. He was lovers with Courtney Love before she married Kurt Cobain.

July 20, 1996: My daughter and I played on the back roof

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday Nancy brought our daughter downtown to spend the weekend with me. We played on the back roof and at the playground a few blocks away.