Sandy Denny

            On Sunday morning I worked out the chords for all but the last few lines of “L'anguille (The Eel)” by Boris Vian. I should have it finished tomorrow. 

            I worked out the chords for the first three lines of the chorus of “Les anthropophages” (The Cannibals) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 90.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune about half the time but at the end I had to unlock the E string to put it in tune. 

            Around midday I painted the first coat of the “Crazy in Love” shade of pink on the bottom of my bathroom lazy Susan. I’ll finish the bottom on Tuesday and paint the top on Wednesday. 

            I weighed 91.4 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the early afternoon since March 2. I had saltines with peanut butter, five-year-old cheddar and a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. It was raining a bit at first and I thought I might only go as far as Ossington but the rain let up and so I continued downtown. On the way home it began raining again for a while but stopped before I was soaked. 

            I weighed 91.2 kilos at 18:15. 

            I was behind in my journal because of my continued recording problems from the night before and so I worked on getting caught up. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, two sliced bratwurst, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching the 8th season finale of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            In the Mama’s Family sketch Eunice and Mama visit Ed in his hardware store. They’re going to a movie later and want Ed to take them out to lunch but he says he can’t because Mickey Hart’s not there to mind the store. He’s gone to the warehouse to pick up some inch and a quarter flathead screws. Mama says she needs a new rubber stopper for her bathtub drain. Ed asks what size and she says the same size as the other one. He asks what size was that but she says, “How the hell should I know? I didn’t measure my rubber stopper!” Mama observes there are hundreds of items in the store that no one would ever use in a hundred years like purple light bulbs but some slick con artist found a sucker and sold them to Ed. Eunice begs again for Ed to take them for lunch but he says he’s waiting for an important phone call on some copper tubing rejects. Mama tells him he can miss that call since he’ll never sell the rejects he’s already got. He argues that he sells everything he buys. If he can’t sell the purple light bulbs they can put them on the Christmas tree. Mama asks if he’s gonna put the butterfly nets on the Christmas tree too. An attractive woman comes in to buy some tape to fix her mattress. Ed tells her a joking rhyme: “I dreamed of shredded wheat / I ate and ate till dawn / But when I woke it wasn’t no joke / Half my mattress was gone”. Ed tells Mama that’ll be 35 cents for the stopper but she’s offended that he would charge her. He says if she doesn’t like it she can go to Acme Hardware which she says is a better store anyway. Eunice starts arguing with Ed about lunch again while Mama slips the stopper into her purse. Mickey Hart has been mentioned since the first Mama sketch but now he walks in played by Tim Conway. He says hello to Eunice and shouts hello to Mama because he thinks she’s hard of hearing. He shouts that he likes her blue hair and it’s obviously an ab ad lib because Carol, Harvey and Vickey have to suppress laughter. Mickey tells Ed they didn’t have inch and a quarter flathead screws at the warehouse. They only had inch and a quarter roundhead screws and inch and sixteenth flathead so he came back to ask if he should buy them both. Ed says for him to go back and get them but Eunice protests that while Mickey is there he can run the store while they go for lunch. Ed says he needs the screws now. Mama asks if he’s expecting a stampede for flathead screws over lunchtime. Eunice leaves with Mama and sarcastically thanks him for lunch, adding that’s exactly what he’s getting for dinner. After they’re gone someone comes in and asks Ed to lunch. He says it’s the best idea he’s heard all day. 

            Carol introduces Vicki Lawrence and she comes out looking very pregnant. Her Mama costume hid it well in the previous sketch. She also announces that Vicki is now Mrs. Al Schultz but doesn’t mention that Al is the makeup artist for the show. Carol asks what she’s going to name the baby. Vicki says if it’s a girl they’re partial to Aphrodite and if it’s a boy either Ulysses or Marmaduke. Carol asks, if it’s a girl, how about Eunice? Vicki puts on her Mama voice and says, “I sure as hell ain’t gonna name another kid Eunice after the way the first one turned out!” Carol tells her to brush up on her lullabies. They then go through a long medley of just about every song that a parent might sing to calm or entertain their infant from “Brahms’ Lullaby” to “Frere Jacque”, to “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”, to “Bingo”, to “London Bridge”, to “It’s a Small World After All”, to “We’re Off to See the Wizard”, to “Mockingbird”, to “Where Are You Going My Little One”, to “Turn Around”, and ending with a return to “Brahms Lullaby”. 

            Carol sings the 1931 song “When Your Lover Has Gone” by Einar Aaron Swan, in the shower and when she leaves there’s a band in the shower still playing. They did a similar skit a few seasons before. 

            Tim Conway playing his old man character is behind the counter at a clock repair shop. Harvey brings in an antique grandfather clock to be repaired. Tim takes forever to make out a claim check for him when he says he has to get back to work. Tim tries to lift the part of the counter that rises so one can pass through but has trouble and ends up being lifted by it when it flips. He twists himself around on top of the counter to push it back down but gets his fingers jammed when it closes. Harvey lifts it then Tim frees his fingers. Then he ducks under it to get to the clock. He goes inside the clock and pokes his head out through the top, making Harvey laugh when he says, “I can see the marina from here!” Tim says he’s fixed the clock so Harvey sets it and it starts chiming while Tim is still inside. Time smashed his arms through the sides of the clock to reach around and stop it. Because Tim broke his clock, Harvey goes behind the counter and starts smashing all the clocks from the shelf. A tall and muscular young man walks in. Harvey asks Tim what he thinks of him smashing the clocks but Tim says, “I don’t know. Ask my son here. He owns the place”. His son tells Harvey to put all the clocks back together now. 

            The Ernie Flatt Dancers sing and dance to a song about war, depression, taxes, and low pay. 

            As usual the season finale ends with Carol’s Charwoman character. The cast leave and kiss her goodbye. She holds up certain of Carol’s costumes and sees flashbacks of scenes the characters were in. She sees Nora Desmond stumbling down a stairs looking insane; she sees Eunice frantically praying when she thinks Mama has hurt herself; and sees Molly’s interaction with Burt from the earlier skit. Then the Charwoman meets a puppet of herself and they sing a duet of the 1967 song “The Two of Us” by Jackie Trent and Tony Hatch. Then the puppet disappears and the Charwoman sits on her bucket to sing as usual for the finale, the extended version of the show’s theme song by Carol’s husband Joe Hamilton. Then she leaves the theatre and as usual kisses the head of the bald man sleeping in the seventh row. 

            I’ve started listening to the Sandy Denny discography starting with the album she did with Strawbs. She had an incredible voice and was an amazing songwriter. I’d never heard her until now although I’ve known and loved her song “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” since I was a teenager and listened to it over and over again from a Judy Collins Greatest Hits album. She attended The Kingston College of Art in 1965 and became involved with the campus folk club. She first performed for the BBC in 1966 at Cecil Sharpe House where she performed two traditional songs: “Fear a' Bhàta” and “Green Grow the Laurels”. Her first professional recordings in 1967 were released as the albums Alex Campbell and His Friends and Sandy and Johnny. The same year she was playing at the Troubadour when she was invited to join the band Strawbs. She did one album with them called All Our Own Work, which included what would become her most famous and widely covered song, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”. Judy Collins heard the demo and named an album after it. Judy’s version was featured in the movie The Subject Was Roses in 1968 giving Sandy international exposure as a songwriter before anyone had heard her voice. She auditioned to become the new singer for Fairport Convention and stood out high above the others. She made three albums with Fairport Convention: What We Did On Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking, and Liege and Lief. She left Fairport Convention to form her own band Fotheringay. She began to play mostly piano from this time on. After one album with Fotheringay she went solo and her first album in 1971 was The North Star Grassman and the Ravens. She was Robert Plant’s favourite singer and she became the only guest vocalist to ever sing on a Led Zeppelin album when she dueted with Plant on The Battle of Evermore in 1971. Her second album in 1972 was called Sandy. Her third album was Like An Old fashioned Waltz. She rejoined Fairport Convention for a world tour that was captured on the album Fairport Live Convention and recorded another studio album with them called Rising for the Moon. Her last solo album Rendezvous was released in 1977. She used to deliberately throw herself down flights of stairs as a party trick and knew how to do it without serious injury. She had developed what seemed to be bipolar disorder and was also drinking and doing a lot of drugs. She fell and hit her head on concrete and afterwards began to get severe headaches for which she was prescribed dextropropoxyphene, which can be deadly when taken with alcohol. She fell downstairs again and went into a coma from which she never recovered and died a week later.

June 15, 1996: Brian Haddon and I performed at the Parkdale Art Festival

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I took my daughter to the Parkdale Art Festival where Brian Haddon and I performed as part of the poetry event at The Rhino. We each got an originally designed artsy Parkdale Art Beat T-shirt for participating.

Jean Stapleton

            On Saturday morning I worked out the chords for the fifth and sixth verses of “L'anguille (The Eel)” by Boris Vian. 

            I worked out the chords for the first verse and the beginning of the chorus of “Les anthropophages” (The Cannibals) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 90.55 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since March 4. 

            I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune the whole time. But it often seems that when I am running ahead of schedule something happens to take away that surplus of time. In this case I had to pause for a time consuming bowel movement in the middle of my rehearsal. 

            Around midday I rode my bike with its trailer down to No Frills where I found only five bags of grapes that weren’t too soft. I also bought a pack of Moroccan blueberries, some bananas, beef rib finger meat, a tub of olive oil margarine, a bottle of olive oil, a pack of Irish Spring soap, a jug of lemonade, a jug of orange juice, a container of skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s potato chips. 

            I weighed 90.95 kilos at 14:20. I had saltines with peanut butter, five-year-old cheddar, and a glass of limeade. 

            After a siesta it was too late for a bike ride downtown and so I just rode to Ossington and Bloor.

            I weighed 91.05 kilos at 17:50. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:11. 

            I tried for the first time since I got the new cable adapter to record from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity. I found that the left channel is louder whether I have the black jack in the left or the right slot of my audio interface. They were balanced up until recently so I don’t know if I should conclude that the problem is in the interface. I was getting noise from the right channel in the tape recording but not from the radio or from another tape but the volume problem is consistent from any sound source. I guess I should switch the RCA cables in the back of the stereo to see if the volume imbalance starts to favour the right channel. 

            I grilled five bratwurst sausages, then I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, two sliced bratwurst, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 8, episode 23 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            Carol opens up the show singing “Alice Blue Gown” by Joseph McCarthy and Harry Tierney from the 1919 musical Irene. She’s wearing a midriff revealing outfit similar to something Cher might wear but the midriff is fake and larger than her own. 

            During the audience warmup Carol tells a little at-home viewer named Becky Morton she loves her. Two teenagers in the audience are the children of Carol’s childhood best friend. Carol and her friend used to fake being sick so they could stay home and play jacks. Someone asks why Carol’s husband Joe always wears red socks, but Carol says he doesn’t. That’s just his high blood pressure. Someone asks if there’ll be a repeat of Drink, Drank, Drunk, which was PBS special documentary hosted by Carol to raise awareness about alcohol abuse. Apparently Carol’s parents were alcoholics. She says she hopes they repeat it. Someone asks Carol who is the nicest person she’s ever worked with. She says Harvey Korman but then we see it was Harvey who asked the question. Someone asks if she ever thought of having her mouth insured and she cracks up. She says there’s not enough money. Someone asks if she’s always so happy. She says she runs hot and cold. But then she hears something back stage and asks what they said in the booth? She explains there’s a bullet proof glass booth where the directors and producers sit. While she’s talking to the audience they make remarks about what she should have said. She can’t hear it but the cameramen and stage managers have ear pieces so they can hear what’s said. So when she hears them chuckle she knows something has been said in the booth. The cameraman says that when she said she runs hot and cold her husband agreed. She asks, “How would he know?” We see a balcony with a divider between two apartments. Phil Silsers comes out on the left one feeling miserable. Carol plays his extremely positive, perky and doting wife who comes out to faun over him, which just makes him feel worse. On the right balcony Harvey comes out feeling positive while his wife (played by Jean Stapleton) is annoyed by his good mood. Carol hands Phil a menu but he says it’s the same menu as always. Harvey asks Jean for some breakfast but she says she’s not running a restaurant. Carol stands to the right side of her balcony and declares what a great day it is. Harvey is impressed. She says the sun makes her balcony look like a Rembrandt painting sometimes. He says it doesn’t do that for his and so she suggests they switch apartments and she’ll pay the difference. He asks if she’s come in and clean once a week and she’s excited that he would allow her to do that. She starts picking the lint from his jacket and he’s in ecstasy. They embrace and he says he’s always wanted a slave. She loves the title and begs him to repeat it. Harvey goes to pack so they can run away together. Phil meets Jean and complains about Carol. Jean says she doesn’t care and he loves her indifference. He says he needs someone like her and she tells him to go away. He’s in heaven. She’s surprised he wants to take all her guff and he says he can’t get enough of that wonderful guff. They agree to be miserable together and she goes to pack. Carol says she’s going to go down to the pear and fish for sea bass. Harvey tell her to also dig some clams. Both switched couples begin singing “Cheek to Cheek” by Irving Berlin from the 1934 musical Top Hat. Jean Stapleton sings “Losing My Mind” by Stephen Sondheim from the 1971 musical Follies. The cast does TV commercial parodies. Harvey is playing chess and concentrating when Phil bites loudly into a Doritos chip. They engage in a crunching competition until the sound of Phil’s crunch knocks Harvey through a wall. Phil does a parody of Menon after shave. He puts it on but can’t stop slapping himself in the face. Carol plays Harvey’s grey haired mother. She says he looks tired and he says he hasn’t been getting much sleep. She says, “Why don’t you try Drop Off sleeping pills?” He says, “I remember you said that to dad”. She says, “I guess I shouldn’t have given him the whole bottle”. Then the guard comes to take Carol back to her cell. Harvey is sitting with his wife Jean and their two kids as he signs a life insurance policy and then has a heart attack and dies. The family sing happily about it. Jean plays an elderly mother who comes home to a surprise party held by her many children. She starts crying and Carol gives her a box of absorbent tissue, telling her that’s her present from all of them. They leave and say they’ll see her next year. Phil is coughing and takes Nyquil then starts sneezing. Harvey and Carol are having coffee but he only gives him half a cup because it will keep him awake. He says, “They can put a man on the moon but they can’t make a coffee that lets you sleep. Then a radio announcer says the moon program has been canceled. Harvey drinks the coffee and goes to sleep. Carol says, “They can make a coffee that lets you sleep but they can’t put a man on the moon”. Harvey comes home and Carol asks, “How was your flight?” He starts to say, “This irregularity.. .” and Carol immediately pours a laxative into his mouth. He says he meant the plane flights were irregular and then rushes to the bathroom. Carol and Jean play two working class women sitting on a New York stoop drinking cans of beer. A couple walks by embracing. Jean says there’s a sexual revolution going on. Carol says she’s on the casualty list. Jean says it would be nice to be young enough to have one more fling. They sing “Flings” by Bob Merrill from the 1957 musical New Girl in Town. Harvey and Carol do an Old Folks sketch as Burt and Mollie for the first time in a long time. It’s the end of the day and she’s mad because she thinks he’s forgotten their anniversary. He finally gives her a string of 64 pearls to match every year they’ve been together. He wants to have sex but she says, “Not this year. I’ve got a headache,” In the hallway outside of an office an executive played by Harvey is about to go in and sees Jean approaching so he opens the door for her. She calls him a chauvinist pig and says he’s reminding her of centuries of male domination and oppression. He says, “I’m sorry miss”. She corrects him, “Ms.!” He says he’s holding the door open for a lady but she corrects him that she’s a person. She says it’s perfectly alright for a person to hold the door for a person and so she takes hold of the doorknob and says, “After you!” He tries to cross the threshold but it’s as if some invisible force is stopping him. he asks why he can’t do it and Jean says, “Because you are the victim of a male dominated society trapped on the traditional topsy turvy treadmill of machismo mythology!” He asks why he can walk through a door if a man is holding it open. She says because men are not a threat while women are. “You’re afraid of me!” He says he’s not but she opens the door for him again and he still can’t walk through. He asks if he can hold the door for himself and she says he can. He asks who she’s there to see and she says J. W. Perkins about a job. He says he’s J. W. Perkins. She asks if that means she doesn’t get the job? he asks if she’s willing to work for a sexist pig? She asks if she be paid the same as a man and he answers she would. It’s a men’s apparel company and he says they need someone to deal with customer complaints. He says she’d be perfect. Phil plays a sergeant in the army and Harvey plays his corporal. The male dancers play his men who are a sloppy drill team that Phil wants whipped into shape for the drill team competition. Carol plays a sergeant with Jean as her corporal and a troop of female soldiers marching in much better form. Phil says they won’t be any competition but Carol starts singing “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” by Irving Berlin from the 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun. Everybody joins in and the men and women do a drill dancing routine that ends in the men and women seductively dancing together. Carol and Jean sing the 1962 song “I’m a Woman” by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller.

            Jean Stapleton made her stage debut in summer stock in 1941. She made her New York debut in The Corn is Green in 1948. She made her TV debut on Starlight Theatre in 1951. She made her film debut in Damn Yankees in 1958, reprising the role she played on Broadway. Norman Lear decided to cast her in All in the Family after she appeared in his film Cold Turkey in 1971. Over 205 episodes she won three Emmy Awards for playing Edith Bunker. She owned and operated The Totem Pole Playhouse summer stock theatre in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. She co-starred in the films Something Wild, Up the Down Staircase, The Buddy System, Michael, You’ve Got Mail, She was nominated for an Emmy for her performance as Eleonor Roosevelt in Eleonor First Lady of the World. She co-starred in the sitcom Bagdad Café. She starred in the series Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.

             

June 14, 1996: My daughter made me a Father's Day tie out of paper

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday Nancy dropped our daughter off at my place after pre-school to spend the weekend. She gave me a Father’s Day tie she’d made out of paper and string and coloured with crayon.

Ed Simmons

            On Friday morning I worked out the chords for the last line of the third verse and all of the fourth verse of “L'anguille (The Eel)” by Boris Vian. 

            I translated the last verse of “Les anthropophages” (The Cannibals) by Serge Gainsbourg. I searched for the chords but no one has posted them. I established the key and so tomorrow I’ll start working out the chords. 

            I weighed 90.35 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it went out of tune about every other song. 

            Around midday I finished the final coat of “blue bliss” hued paint on my future bathroom mirror frame. On Sunday I’ll start painting the bathroom lazy Susan the shade of pink called “crazy in love”. When that’s finished I’ll return to the mirror frame and paint the four floral reliefs that same shade of pink. 

            I weighed 91.35 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the early afternoon since May 27.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back to buy the pack of Sponge Towels that I forgot to buy yesterday when I was there. 

            I weighed 90.95 kilos at 18:00.

            I was finally caught up in my journal for the first time in days at 20:24. 

            I worked on digitally enhancing an old photograph. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast pork while watching season 8, episode 21 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warm-up someone from Canada asks if she’s ever been there. Carol says she never has because she’s too young for anyone to take her over the border. A guy says if she likes bald men he’d take her over the border. She says she hears bald men are virile. 

            In the Mama’s Family sketch Roddy McDowell returns as Eunice’s brother Phil. He’s now a successful, Oscar winning Hollywood writer and Eunice, Ed and Mama have driven out to California to visit him. The only star Mama wants to meet is Lawrence Welk. Eunice keeps hinting that she wants Phil to get her into the movies. She says she admires that Francis Ford Coppola put his sister Talia Shire in The Godfather. Phil has written a screenplay about the love affair between Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex. Eunice starts reading it in her southern US accent. She says her teacher always said she had good expressions. Ed tells Phil he should put some Three Stooges type schtick into his screenplay to liven things up. Eunice starts singing “Memories”. Mama tells her to get off Phil’s back and stop hinting that he should put a no talent like her in his movie and flush his career down the toilet. Philip says he doesn’t know much about acting because he’s a writer. Eunice says, “We know you’re a writer! That’s all you ever talk about and you throw it in our faces all the time with your writing statues! You’d come home from school and read a couple of poems you wrote in English class that nobody could make head nor tail out of and daddy’d go out and buy you two Eskimo Pies!” But if she came home from Expression class and shared some of her expressions the room would clear like rats from a sinking ship. Ed starts to say he’d like to hear some of her expressions but she tells him to shut up. She says he’s the reason she’s not in her proper station in life. If she hadn’t married him she’d have had time to develop her talent so that her brother wouldn’t be ashamed to put her in his movie. Ed says he had plans too. He wanted to have a chain of hardware stores. He says it’s still not too late cause if Phil can do it anybody can. Phil says he may have to check into a hotel for a couple of weeks while they’re visiting so he can work on his screenplay. He says anything they want his houseboy will take care of it. While they are arguing Phil slips out the door like he did last time. When they realize he’s gone Eunice just says Phil never did have a sense of family and they head for the pool. 

            Bernadette Peters sings “All That Jazz” by John Kander and Fred Ebb from the 1975 musical Chicago while doing a sexy dance in a slinky outfit with the help of the Ernie Flatt dancers. 

            Carol and Bernadette play two secretaries working side by side who are totally coordinated in their typing and all their other movements as well. They also answer the phone at the same time. They have identical lunchboxes. Carol is taking her vacation the first week in July while Bernadette will be going the first week in August. They wish they could take their vacations at the same time because it would be fun doing things together for a change. 

            There is a parody of the movie The Heiress called The Lady Heir. Carol plays Catherine, a shy, klutzy, dull young woman and Harvey plays her wealthy and verbally abusive father. His sister tells him he should be warmer towards her and so he tells her she looks less hideous than usual. They receive a visit from Norris Townsley (played by Roddy). He says he finds Catherine enchanting and tells her he loves her. He admits to her father she’s a troll but says she’s clever. Her father challenges that by asking her “Why did the chicken cross the road?” She racks her brains but can’t come up with an answer. Her father gives Norris permission to marry “this doddering clod”. She runs to pack her things. Meanwhile the father tells Norris that he’s disinheriting Catherine and so Norris leaves. Later Catherine’s father tells her what he said to Norris. Catherine changes and suddenly begins to assert herself. She tells her father to shut up. He has a heart attack and dies. Three years pass and now Catherine is a sophisticated, flamboyantly dressed, confident woman. Norris returns to try to win her over again and she plays along. She suggests they elope and hands him a handbag that she says contains her entire fortune. She tells him to take it outside and wait for her. She tells her aunt that if Norris doesn’t open the bag he’ll belong to her but if he does he’ll belong to the whole neighbourhood. He does open it and it blows up. 

            They finish with a mini-musical featuring the words and music of Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock but done with French accents. Carol sings “Good Clean Fun” from the 1960 musical Tenderloin. Bernadette sings “Dear Friend” from the 1963 musical She Loves Me. Roddy arrives and sings “Matchmaker” from the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof. Bernadette sings it as well. Bernadette sings “Will He Like Me?” also from She Loves Me and so does Roddy. Then they dance to “Sunrise Sunset” from Fiddler. Carol sings “Days Gone By” from She Loves Me. Then she sings “The Very Next Man” from the 1959 musical Fiorello. Harvey sings “”If I Were a Rich Man” from Fiddler but with some French lines added, such as instead of “All day long I’d biddy biddy boom” he sings “All day long I’d je ne sais pas quoi”. Then Carol and Harvey sing “Do You Love Me?” from Fiddler followed by “She Loves Me” from She Loves Me. Then Roddy joins in with Harvey as Carol and Bernadette sing “Matchmaker” in counterpoint to “She Loves Me”. 

            The head writer for The Carol Burnett Show was Ed Simmons. He started out a partnership with Norman Lear when they wrote a monologue for Danny Thomas. Lear said that he and Simmons were new and fresh just like television and so they became “the” comedy writers for that medium. They then wrote for The Ford Star Revue, The Colgate Comedy Hour starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and The Martha Raye Show. He went on to write solo for George Gobel, Dinah Shore, Red Skelton, and Tom Jones. In the 60s he wrote for Jerry Lewis’s variety show. He created Dean Martin’s comical reputation as an alcoholic lounge singer. He won five Emmy Awards with The Carol Burnett Show. He was nominated for a total of thirteen Emmys.

June 13, 1996: We rehearsed for the Parkdale Art Fest

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I rehearsed with Brian Haddon for our weekend performance at the Parkdale Art Festival.

Dick Patterson

            On Thursday morning I worked out the chords for all but the last line of the third verse of “L'anguille (The Eel)” by Boris Vian. I think the next line will complete the chord pattern and so the rest of the verses will be easy. 

            I finished memorizing “Les anthropophages” (The Cannibals) by Serge Gainsbourg. I still need to translate the last verse and then I’ll look for the chords. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos before breakfast. 

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

            I was still behind in my journal and worked on getting caught up. 

            I weighed 91.25 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but it started raining when I was on Brock just south of Bloor. I turned around and headed south to go to Freshco but after I got to College, dismounted and was about to cross the street, the rain let up. So I started riding up Brock again but the rain returned by the time I got to Cobourg and so I turned around again, rode back to College, east to Gladstone, and south to Freshco. The grapes were cheap but they were all squishy so I didn’t get any. I bought a pack of raspberries, some bananas, a pack of bratwurst, and a jar of mild salsa. 

            I weighed 91.4 kilos at 17:45, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since February 20. If the rain hadn’t stopped my bike ride I would have been lighter. 

            I worked on getting caught up in my journal. 

            I had a potato with gravy and the end of a pork sirloin roast while watching season 8, episode 19 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup someone asks about the costume designer for the show. She repeats that it’s Bob Mackie and that he also does Cher’s costumes. 

            Someone asks Carol if he can feel her double jointed hip and so she lets him come up and feel it.

            She mentions that Harvey Korman won a Golden Globe Award but for some dumb reason they gave it out during a commercial and nobody got to see it on TV. 

            Someone asks Carol what else she has that’s double jointed and she shows that her hands are. 

            At the beginning of the Mama’s Family sketch we see Eunice on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. Ed comes in with a box of items he’s fetched from Mama’s house. He complains that he had other things to do today like put up the display for the Japanese rabbit traps he ordered to sell at his hardware store. Eunice says she’s the one who’s had to wheel Mama around for two days so she doesn’t have time to buy him a medal. The phone rings and it’s Eunice’s sister Ellen (who we never see). Eunice explains that Mama broke her ankle after falling down Eunice’s stairs. Mama and Eunice had been watching the roller derby on TV when Mama went upstairs to the bathroom. While she was there she got the idea that Eunice’s bathtub needed cleaning so she mixed some ammonia and bleach and started scrubbing with her face down in the fumes. Then she staggered to the head of the stairs and passed out before tumbling down the stairs. They cleaned up the little storeroom on the main floor for Mama to use as a bedroom while she’s recovering. Mama rings her bell and Ed goes to see what she wants. Next Ed wheels her out to the living room. Mama keeps telling Eunice to sit down and relax and not to fuss over her but as soon as she does sit down Mama asks for something. She asks for her shawl because they keep the place so cold. Mama says to act as if she’s not there but when Ed wants to turn on the TV to watch Bowling for Dollars Eunice stops him. Mama says it’s fine but why he wants to watch those freaks or watch TV at all is beyond her. Eunice says they can talk but they don’t. Mama decides to read the paper. Eunice asks Mama if she wants a drink. Mama tells her to sit down but then asks for a glass of orange juice and hopes it’s not from frozen but it is. She complains the glass is sticky and asks for a damp cloth. Mama addresses Ed’s plan of selling Japanese rabbit traps. She says she wishes him all the best but tells him to not be surprised if it goes down the drain like all his other plans. Mama asks for the jar of hand cream that Ed brought back from her place but it turns out that what he brought was the hand cream jar that she uses to hold her bobby pins. She says, “It should be obvious to even you that hand cream don’t rattle!” Mama asks Eunice to clean the puffy balls of grease and lint from under her stove. Eunice blows up and says she’s been on her hands and knees scrubbing but Mama says it doesn’t look like it. The phone rings and it’s Ellen. Eunice gives Mama the phone and Mama speaks incredibly sweetly to Ellen while using the conversation to criticize Eunice. She explains her accident and how she went nuts when she saw Eunice’s greasy grimy bathtub. She says Eunice must be planning to make a planter out of it. Mama tells Ellen she’ll still be there next week and Ed gives her a dirty look. Mama tells Ed to wheel her back into that closet full of cobwebs they call a room. Eunice gets angry and says she cleaned the room but Mama says there’s a cobweb hanging over her bed she’s afraid is gonna strangle her in her sleep. Eunice goes in her room and says the cobweb is gone and she can go in there and stare at the four walls all day. Mama tells Ed to wheel her back in but he asks her who she is to order him around. He says he’s going back to the store. She says, “On the way pick up my hand cream and my murder mystery”. He tells her to sit on a tack. He says he’s in the middle of one of the biggest business deals of his life and all he gets is sniping and sneering from her. She tells him selling rabbit traps is nuttier than all his other schemes put together. He shouts, “There’s gonna be a rabbit epidemic! Last year hundreds of farmers had their crops eaten by swarms of rabbits and the papers say the same thing is gonna happen this year!” Mama calls him a dumb cluck and tells him the rabbit epidemic last year was in Australia. Ed suddenly looks stunned but then says there’s going to be a rabbit epidemic in the US this year, “And don’t call me a dumb cluck!” “What else would you call someone who can’t tell the difference between hand cream and bobby pins?” He says, “You got one broken ankle, would ya like to try for two?” “You wouldn’t dare!” “Don’t try to find out!” Mama says she’s going to a nursing home and tells Eunice to wheel her to the bedroom so she can get her things. Eunice says she’s not her slave and she can do it herself. Mama says Eunice’s aunt saw her in the cradle and said, “This one’s gonna cause you nothin but grief and she was right!” Mama goes to the bedroom and suddenly there’s a loud crash. Eunice falls to her knees and prays that Mama’s all right. Ed wheels Mama back out and she says a lamp fell over and she’s fine. Eunice apologizes, so does Ed and so does Mama but within seconds they are bitterly arguing again. 

            Harvey plays a police detective investigating a murder and the only witness is in a coma in the hospital. Harvey comes to see him, the patient wakes and it’s Tim Conway’s old man character. He says the killer had a double barrel shotgun and pointed it right in his face. But suddenly he seems scared again. He points to Harvey’s nose and asks, “Is that loaded?” Harvey starts laughing. Tim says he saw the killer. “He was sitting right there and then he…he…he…ahh”. Then he’s gone. Harvey puts a sheet over his head and starts walking away but then Tim says, “He ordered spaghetti”. Tim describes the killer while Harvey draws him but the result is Mickey Mouse. Tim says, “That’s him!” He’s afraid he’s going to come and kill him. Harvey goes to get someone to give him a sedative. Tim gets out of bed and shuffles very slowly to the door to lock it but when he’s almost there he says he forgot his slippers. So he shuffles back and returns to the door but realizes the slippers are on the wrong feet and shuffles back only to see that they were not on the wrong feet. He shuffles back only to be hit by the door when Harvey returns. The doctor gives Tim a sedative and he and Harvey leave. Tim gets caught in the curtain that hangs from rollers on the ceiling. Harvey comes back in with a wheelchair to take Tim to another room but he can’t find him. He keeps sliding the curtain open and slamming Tim into the wall. He looks for Tim but can’t find him. Then he learns the killer is cornered on the first floor. Tim tries to push a wheelchair out of the way but it pushes him out the window. 

            Carol and Vicki repeat a number from season 7, episode 3 when they sing “Mama’s Got a Date”, and “If Mama Got Married” and then Harvey does his big Jewish mother drag character as their just married mama. 

            Carol and Harvey play a couple strolling in the park when they come across a wishing well. Harvey wants to make a wish but has no change so Carol gives him a nickel. He makes the wish and tosses the coin and she wants to no what was his wish but he says it won’t come true if he tells her. She argues that it was her nickel. He still won’t tell her so she decides to make a wish of her own. he wants to know what she wished and she says she wished he would tell her his wish. Carol then starts digging in the wishing well for her nickel to take it back so his wish won’t come true. He tries to stop her and she punches him in the face. He returns the punch and so does she. She finds her nickel and says, “Now your wish won’t come true!” He puts her head first in the well and says, “It just did!” 

            Tim is behind a bar counting the money from a cash register. A gunman (played by Dick Patterson) comes in and says, “Gimme all your money”. There is only $3. Dick goes behind the bar and confirms that’s all there is. Then Harvey comes in with a gun and points it at Dick and demands all the money. Dick hands him the $3. Tim tells Harvey not to believe him. Tim says, “”I’ll bet there’s some under the tray” and there is. Harvey asks Tim why he’s being so helpful and he says he’s a robber too. Harvey apologizes for cutting in but Tim says it’s his week off. Tim suggests Dick might have some more money on his person and so Harvey gets a roll from him. Tim asks if this is his first robbery of the night and Harvey reveals he made $1500 from knocking over a gas station. He puts the money on the bar and then a cop walks in. Tim shouts, “Help! I’m being robbed!” Both Harvey and Dick are arrested and Tim gathers up their money. Before he leaves he opens the phone booth and the real bound and gagged bartender tumbles out. 

            The final number is set on an ancient Egyptian barge as Carol plays Cleopatra singing “Row Row Row My Boat” with the dancers and her doing a kind of Egyptian dance. Then she sings the 1931 song “Up the Lazy River” by Hoagy Carmichael and Sidney Arodin. Then Harvey comes in as Marc Antony and sings “Up the Lazy River” while Cleopatra sings the 1917 Eddie Green song “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. 

             Dick Patterson appeared in several sketches on The Carol Burnett Show. He started as a stand-up comedian and a song and dance man. He made his television debut in 1958 on The Ed Sullivan Show. made his Broadway debut in Vintage 60. He got his big break in 1961 when he replaced Dick Van Dyke in the original Broadway production of Bye Bye Birdie. His first credited film role was in A Matter of Innocence (or Pretty Polly) in 1967. He wrote material for the Las Vegas acts of Debbie Reynolds and Rich Little.