Betty Ford

            On Friday morning after midnight I put down two sided carpet tape all around the edge of my futon underneath the fitted sheet, then I did the same to the outside of the fitted sheet. While putting the last strip of tape at the foot of my bed I noticed a bedbug on the bedroom curtain that covers the inside of the passage between the bedroom and the living room. I killed it and noticed another and killed that one as well. Then I did a search of the whole curtain for more monsters and discovered at the top, in and around the rod pocket a shitload of bedbug nests. They looked like they’d been there for quite a while as I’d never looked up there for bedbugs. I started killing them and spent at least half an hour, probably destroying at least fifty. I realized that my project for today was going to be washing and drying those curtains as well as using my steamer on the wooden curtain rods. I didn’t get to bed until 2:45 but I slept well until 4:43 when I got up to pee, then went back to sleep for fifteen more minutes. After yoga I didn’t find many bedbugs stuck to the tape on the bed but there were a few on the tape on the floor at the head of my bed. 

            I worked out the chords for line 3 of “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian. There’s one line left in the first verse and I’ll probably have it done tomorrow. I think the chords for all the verses will be the same so after that I’ll work out the chords for the chorus. 

            I ran through singing and playing “The Seduction of Doctor Faust”, my translation of “Docteur Faust” by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare it for publication. 

            I weighed 91.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the first of two sessions and it went out of tune constantly. 

            Around midday I did my laundry nine days after the last time specifically to wash the two sets of curtains that separate my bedroom and living room because I’d found several bedbug nests in the rod pockets of the curtains on the bedroom side. I also washed whatever else had gotten dirty in the last 9 days.

            I weighed 92 kilos at 16:10. 

            I took a siesta and woke up too late to take a bike ride. 

            I weighed 92.3 kilos at 18:35. 

            I was still two days behind in my journal and worked on catching up. 

            I grilled eight chicken drumsticks and had two with a potato and gravy while watching an interview with Vikki Carr. 

            Vikki was onstage at the age of 4 in school. 

            At 18 her father allowed her to go on the road to sing for 5 or 6 shows a night in Nevada lounges. The casinos were 24 hours and so the times of the shows would change from week to week: 6:00 to 12:00; 9:00 to 15:00; 12:00 to 18:00; 15:00 to 21:00; and then 18:00 to midnight. 

            Over the years she developed one of the finest microphone techniques in the business. She would tell the sound person not to change the levels once she started because she knew what she was doing. In the casinos they would turn off the singer’s mic to announce the jackpot even if they were in the middle of a soaring vocal. 

            On television she was not allowed to sing the word “god” in her hit song “It Must Be Him”. And yet they were okay with her singing the line “and I thank god I’m alive” in the song “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”. But once “It Must Be Him” hit #1 in England it was re-released in the US and she was allowed to sing it. Her song “Sleeping Between Two People” was banned in Boston. 

            She has a reputation for crying while singing sad songs. After she performed “It Must Be Him” on Ed Sullivan Ed came over with a handkerchief and asked if she was alright. 

            She worked with Perry Como in Mexico and he complimented her on her cologne. He asked what she was wearing. She said it was Chloe and he said, “I’m gonna get a gallon of that for my wife and if she doesn’t smell like you I’m gonna get rid of her.” 

            She says Dean Martin never rehearsed and so the guest had to be the one to carry the musical number that he would join in on. 

            The song line-ups for Vikki's shows are subject to change based on the audience. 

            She was performing in a show with Jack Benny and Bobby Vinton and Jack was watching Bobby perform. He said, “I don’t know whether to watch or listen”. If you move around too much the audience gets confused. 

            She can’t wear the thirteen centimeter heels as much anymore because all those years of wearing them have given her hammer toes and bunions. Her beaded gowns weight 16 kilos. 

            When she guest hosted The Tonight Show she had just come back from entertaining the troops in Vietnam with Danny Kaye. They asked her who she’d like to have as a guest and she said Danny Kaye but they said he’s always refused to appear on The Tonight Show. So she asked him and he came. After her opening song she went and sat in the guest’s chair until Ed McMahon reminded her that she was the host. 

            Vikki was at the White House to present Gerald Ford with the latest Easter Seals. She told him if there’s anything he needs to just call her. Later she got a call from Ford who told her that he and Betty would be receiving the chancellor of Austria and wanted to arrange for some entertainment so he asked her to sing. But when she started making arrangements to bring her band in the White House hadn’t been informed that she had been asked to perform. She had to inform them that their boss had invited her. Betty had just had a double mastectomy and Vikki wore a low cut dress. Later she told Ford that if he’s ever in LA feel free to visit and she’ll cook him some Mexican food. She asked him what was his favourite Mexican dish and he answered, “You”. The next day it was in all the papers and Vikki was on Betty Ford’s black list for performing at the White House along with Raquel Welch. Vikki’s mother called her and demanded to know what she’d done at the White House. 

            Vikki doesn’t have many show business friends because her social life is about family. 

            Vikki was getting bronchitis 8 or 9 times a year from performing in places with cigarette smoke. People called it “Vegas throat”. She started losing her voice and so she went for allergy tests until it was discovered that she was allergic to everything but especially cigarette smoke. At the Riviera she asked the management to request that the audience refrain from smoking but the owner refused because the gamblers are more important. So Vikki asked the audience herself to not smoke and the room was clear of smoke for the first time. It made the headlines. After that she became an anti-smoking activist and the chairman of the American Lung Association. She started boycotting clubs that allowed smoking. 

            It was a joy to work with Carol Burnett and her crew. Inspired by Carol, Vikki started taking questions from the audience before her shows. 

            Vikki always wanted to be a dancer but Debbie Reynolds told her to just keep singing. 

            Vikki doesn’t think Carol could make a career as a singer but it worked as part of her comedy.

            Carol made her guests feel they were part of the family. 

            Lyle Waggoner had an incredible home in Mazatlán, Mexico and she could see it from her hotel room. It was featured in Architectural Digest. Lyle acted more professionally than the rest of the cast.

            Vikki was mistaken for Vicki Lawrence a lot. 

            She would watch Sonny and Cher just to see what Cher was going to wear. 

            Vikki later took ballroom dance lessons and won several trophies. 

            She asked George Burns what to say to young people who ask how to get into show business. He told her, “The minute they ask, they’re never gonna make it.” 

            Betty Ford studied ballet, tap, and modern movement when she was 8. At 14, in the wake of the Great Depression shew made money buy working as a model and teaching popular dances to children. She started her own dance school while still in high school. After graduation she was accepted as a dance student of Martha Graham in New York and worked as a fashion model to pay her tuition. She joined Graham’s troupe and performed at Carnegie Hall. 

            She was married unhappily to Willian G. Warren from 1942 to 1947. She married Gerald Ford a month after divorcing Warren. They had four children and Gerald was often away campaigning for half the year leaving Betty to raise the children. She never used corporal punishment. 

            In 1964 a pinched nerve on the left side of her face led to valium addiction. She also became an alcoholic. 

            She was a supporter of abortion rights. 

            When her husband’s political career became more intense in 1965 she suffered a nervous breakdown and sought psychiatric help. She did not enjoy being a politician’s wife and was thrilled when he suggested that he might retire from congress in 1977. But when Spiro Agnew retired as vice president in 1973, Richard Nixon appointed Ford his new vice president, and so Betty became the Second Lady of the US. 

            When interviewed by Barbara Walters she expressed her support for the Supreme Court making abortion constitutionally protected. She also supported Federally funded daycare, which Nixon opposed.

            After Nixon resigned her husband was made president and she became First Lady. The press caught Gerald patting Betty’s behind the day he was sworn in. They also broke the tradition of the president and his wife sleeping in separate bedrooms. After a 1975 interview with McCall’s Magazine she commented that they’d asked her everything but how often she and the president had sex. Then she added that if they had asked she would have answered, “As often as possible”. 

            She was the most politically outspoken First Lady since Eleonor Roosevelt. She surprised the media by supporting a woman’s right to an abortion, which went against the official stance of her husband’s Republican Party. 

            After her double mastectomy she became the first US First Lady to make public her medical records since Florence Harding in 1922. This raised awareness of cancer, which the US public had been reluctant to discuss. 

            In 1976 she made a cameo appearance on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. 

            She lobbied her husband to award Martha Graham the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

            She revived dancing as an activity at White House state dinners. 

            She became a symbol of Liberal Republicanism. Some of her views were even more liberal than those of Jimmy Carter’s wife Rosalynn Carter. When Gerald was running for re-election some supporters created buttons that read, “Betty’s Husband for President” and “Keep Betty in the White House”. 

            When her husband was defeated by Carter, Betty became the only First Lady in history to deliver her husband’s concession speech. 

            In 1978 she submitted herself to treatment for prescription drug and alcohol addiction. As she had been about her cancer she was outspoken about her addiction. In 1982 she established The Betty Ford Clinic for the treatment of chemical dependency. 

            She spoke out against the bans on gay citizens serving in the military.

August 30, 1996: Brian and I busked on Bloor for beer and a bite

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday Brian Haddon and I busked on Bloor Street and made enough for lunch and beer. Then we busked some more before going to perform on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of The Cameron.

Tina Fey

            On Thursday I went to bed at 1:30 but barely slept because there was a major bedbug invasion of my bed and body. I got up at 2:45 and I must have killed about fifty, half just from running the lint roller over my mattress. Quite a few were caught on the carpet tape around the edge of my futon, mostly on the wall side but they seem to only get caught after they are bloated with my blood and only some get stuck while crossing the tape before they’ve fed. I went back to bed but still couldn’t sleep because soon I started feeling them again. I still haven’t been able to find any nests to know where they are coming from. I killed some more and tried to sleep again but no dice. At 4:30 I got up to kill some more and lint rolled again. At 4:45 I had fifteen minutes before the alarm so I went back to bed and dreamed I was underground and traversing a tunnel with a dark haired troubled woman. Then we were walking in the street behind a guy who might have been her boyfriend and they were arguing about abuse and a child they had together. Later she and I were back in the tunnel while I was carrying a long yellow staff. She offered to carry the pole and so I let her but she was drunk and lost it. I escorted her out of the building with the intention of returning to look for the staff but she stood on a landing and jumped to the street from a second floor height. It looked like she must have hurt herself but when I looked for her she was gone and I woke up. 

            After yoga I worked out the chords for line 2 of “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished working out the chords for “Docteur Faust” by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through singing it in French. Tomorrow I’ll run through my translation and then upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare it for publication. 

            I weighed 91.5 kilos before breakfast. 

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

            I weighed 92.65 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. There were no more cherries and the grapes were too soft so I bought a basket of Canadian peaches, a basket of Canadian plums, a Canadian watermelon, some bananas, a packet of sliced smoked turkey, a packet of sliced Black Forest ham, and a lint roller. 

            I weighed 92.4 kilos at 18:40. 

            I slipped back to being two days behind in my journal and worked on catching up. 

            I grilled a striploin steak and had it with a potato with gravy while watching three interviews: with Tina Fey, Tony Bennett, and Vicki Lawrence on the subject of Carol Burnett. 

            Tina says Mama’s Family is like the precursor to The Office. On 30 Rock, Matt Damon’s character was named Carol Burnett. 

            Tony Bennet says Carol is one of the best singers he ever met. I don’t know why people keep saying that. She could sing well but lots of singers are better. She was a good theatrical singer because her voice was loud and she could carry a tune but she was no Barbara Streisand. When he was a guest on her show he did sketches of her and the rest of the cast and the sets. She asked him to make a painting of Times Square for her and he did one in oil that she adored. In later years he painted every day. Carol was like a next door neighbour to her audience. The only other performer who took questions from the audience was George Burns. On Tony’s birthday no matter where he was in the world, Carol sent him one rose. 

             Lady Gaga is very spontaneous and a great singer. 

             Vicki says it was her mother who encouraged her to write the fan letter that caught Carol’s attention. She hadn’t even seen Carol on television very much. She’d seen the play Once Upon a Mattress because they were going to do it for their high school musical. Vicki wasn’t that interested in musical theatre. She was already singing with The Young Americans. She did the comedy songs and some funny bitts for The Young Americans movie. She remembers seeing Carol on The Entertainers but she watched that because she had a crush on John Davidson. As far as female performers are concerned Vicki was more of a fan of Mary Tyler Moore. She was also in love with Dick Van Dyke. It was only because she cut her hair short before high school that everybody started telling her that she looked like Carol Burnett. Vicki was a big writer of fan letters and so her mother said she should write one to Carol. She had no pictures of Carol on her walls. She had Johnny Crawford, Fabian, and Clint Eastwood. Carol told her later that her fan letter was unique because it was written well and had something to say.

             When Carol invited her to audition for her new show, Vicki went to the director of The Young Americans to tell him. He told her the chances were miniscule of her audition leading to anything and warned her that if she backed out of the summer tour she wouldn’t be allowed back into the group. It was a very traumatic decision for her. 

            She thought she was going to be a dental hygienist, marry a rich dentist and hang it up. 

            Vicki learned from Carol how a show should be run. She was very giving, loving, caring, and nurturing. Carol knew everybody in her crew and cared about them. Vicki barely even spoke to Carol for the first few years because she put her on such a pedestal even while she was learning from her. Vicki doesn’t know if the fairy tale story of her success would ever happen nowadays. The suits would come down today and just say, “Get rid of her and get somebody who knows what she’s doing.” A lot of older people she’d meet on Carol’s show would tell her it’s nothing like the real world of show business. Carol’s show was a special place. 

            Vicki says a good executive producer hires the best people then backs off and lets them do their jobs. That doesn’t happen much anymore. 

            Harvey Korman never gave up on a sketch even after everybody else said it wasn’t working. Vicki says that she thinks he thought that since he was stuck with having her around, it was his duty to train her. He worked with her on dialects and props. He told her, “Make your props your friends!” When they did the old movie take-offs Harvey would have to explain to her who her character was based on because she didn’t know those films. He taught her most everything she came to learn about comedy.

            Vicki started at UCLA the same year she started on Carol’s show. When it came time to declare a major she picked theatre because of what she was learning on Carol’s show. But Theatre students were required to do a quarter of a year in crew work; they were required to audition for parts and take them if accepted, which would have conflicted with The Carol Burnett Show. She went to her favourite Theatre professor who told her to sit in the audience of The Carol Burnett Show with a notepad and watch the best teachers in the world. He told Vicki she was already where every kid in the Theatre department would give their right arm to be. She devastated her parents when she told them she was thinking of dropping out because her father went to UCLA. Vicki decided to appease them and declare a Dance major because Dance schedules were more flexible than Theatre. She was told she had to take Dance 1-A, which was Interpretive and Creative. In the first class she was lying on the floor with the other students and the instructor said, “Today we will be seaweed rolling on the ocean floor”. Vicki was more interested in learning a Travelling Time Step so she got up, grabbed her bag and quit UCLA. Coincidentally she left after two years just like Carol did. 

            Lyle Waggoner was the second greenest member of the cast. She used to go to his little apartment with him and his wife would cook them lunch. Lyle made a side living with a fan club that cost $2 to join and members would get a button that said, “Be Relyleable”. 

            Bob Mackie didn’t want people to sit down in his costumes. At Halloween Vicki would take her kids to where his costumes were stored and borrow them. He knew how to express comedy through his costumes but Vicki thought Mrs. Tudball's costume was a little over the top. Many times you didn’t know your character until Bob Mackie dressed you. The only thing Vickie added to her Mama costume was to push the stockings down so they were wrinkled because that reminded her of her grandma. The first time she put on the costume she looked in the mirror and said, “Good lord! I’m dysfunctional!”

            Vicki doesn’t know why they thought she was worth the trouble of teaching her. Neil Simon’s brother Danny Simon was the director of the comedy sketches and he would get frustrated with Vicki.

            The first sketch she was fully part of was a takeoff ion The Newlywed Game and Kenny Solms played her husband. That’s when she first did her high voiced bimbo character. She didn’t feel like she pulled her weight until halfway through the series. 

            Dick Clark’s favourite blooper was the one in which Vicki’s character Mama calls Tim’s character Mickey Hart a “little asshole”, which causes Tim to collapse laughing on the floor. She got paid every time Dick showed that blooper, which was a lot. That was the first sketch in which Vicki went off script. 

           When she and Tim guest appeared on the sitcom Yes Dear the suits thought it was funny when Tim went off script but still insisted on him doing it the way it was written. 

            Vicki played Miley Cyrus’s grandmother on Hannah Montana. She taught Miley what Harvey taught her, to make her props her friends. 

            Vicki says if when she was growing up on The Carol Burnett Show there had been people with cell phones in the audience recording everything and uploading it to the internet she might not have chosen this profession. 

            The producers of Mama’s Family asked Vicki to do a Q & A with the audience just like Carol before the live taping. She was terrified at first but came around. 

            When Vicki did her talk show it was for the wrong company and a nightmare. She had learned that television was supposed to be fun or you’re doing it wrong but the producer didn’t agree. They were at each other’s throats for two years. 

            Tina Fey studied Drama at The University of Virginia and then went to Chicago where she took the first set of Second City courses. Nothing she’d studied about acting at university clicked for her but at Second City she learned to focus on her partner and it all made sense. After nine months a teacher told her to skip ahead and audition for the Second City Training Centre. She eventually entered the training program. She became a cast member for several years. In 1995 she was invited to audition for Saturday Night Live. After a few years she became the first female head writer. In the 25th season she began doing Weekend Update with Jimmy Fallon. Her character of Liz Lemon on 30 Rock was meant to be the opposite of a Sex and the City character. She co-created the sitcoms Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Mr. Mayor, and The Four Seasons, She co-produced Girls5eva and Mulligan. She co-hosted The Golden Globe Awards four times. She wrote and co-starred in Mean Girls. She wrote and co-produced Mean Girls the musical. She starred in Baby Mama, Admission, Sisters, and Whisky Tango Foxtrot (which she co-produced). She co-starred in Date Night, Megamind, This Is Where I Leave You, Maggie Moore, A Haunting In Venice, Muppets’ Most Wanted, Wine Country, and Soul. She wrote the memoir Bossypants, the audio for which won a Grammy Award. She’s won ten Emmy Awards. 

            She was a virgin when she met her husband at the age of 24 and he’s the only person she’s ever had sex with. 

            She says Paris Hilton is a piece of shit. Paris told the writers they should do a skit about Jessica Simpson “because she’s fat”. 

            Tina doesn’t have a driver’s license but while I was writing this I fell asleep at the computer and dreamed that I went on a car trip with Tina Fey. She drove us out to the middle of nowhere and then stopped. We were getting out of the car when I woke up. 

August 29, 1996: I rounded up bookings

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I spent more time on the phone rounding up Fall modelling bookings.

Steve Allen

            On Wednesday I went to bed around 1:40 and got to sleep fairly soon after that. I woke up at 4:00 to pee and slept until the alarm went off at 5:00. After yoga I checked for bedbugs and there were a few adults stuck to the carpet tape on the floor at the head of my bed while a few babies were crawling above them on the old exit door. 

            I transcribed the poem from 1998 that’s in the Love Poems document stuck in Protected View and started revising it.

            I worked out the chords for the instrumental intro and the first line of “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian. 

            I worked out the chords for the second, third, and fourth verses of “Docteur Faust” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91.65 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time.

            Around midday I walked over to Home Hardware and bought two rolls of two-sided carpet tape. I put strips at the top, bottom and both sides of the old exit door at the head of my bed. 

            I weighed 92.8 kilos before lunch. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            I took a siesta and slept 40 minutes longer than usual. It was too late to take a bike ride downtown but not to ride to Ossington and Bloor. 

            I weighed 92.45 kilos at 17:50. 

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

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, a chopped ground beef burger, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching an interview with Tim Conway. 

            Tim says if he did any of his characters again it would have to be with the people he originally did them, like with Carol Burnett in the Tudball and Wiggins sketches or anything he did with Harvey Korman. They both could improve anything written in a script. 

            Tim secretly tricked Harvey on Dick Clark’s Bloopers and Blunders and he was set up to believe there was not only a buyer for the losing racehorse he co-owned with Tim, but one willing to pay three times the original price. Harvey was in ecstasy when they were about to close the deal until suddenly the buyer’s grandson said he wanted a different coloured horse and they walked away. Tim took Harvey over to a two-way mirror and said, “You know Dick Clark?” The minute he said, “Dick Clark” Harvey said, “Cheap guy! Never pays anybody anything!” Tim says that wasn’t true but Harvey just went off like that sometimes. Harvey goes on to say that Clark’s program about the bloopers never works. Nobody falls for it. Harvey had been growing a beard for a movie but before this fake deal Tim convinced him to shave it so he’d look like Harvey. After he found out he’d been pranked he didn’t speak to Tim for two months. 

            One time when Tim and Harvey were flying from New York to California they stopped for fuel in Arizona. After taking off again Tim says to Harvey that he’d noticed that when they fueled up the guy put the gas cap on the wing but didn’t screw it back on and now it’s fallen off the wing. Harvey goes up and bangs on the door of the pilot’s cabin to tell him that his gas cap fell off while other passengers are overhearing. The pilot tells him that there’s no gas cap on a plane. 

            Tim says if Ken Berry had been born at an earlier time he would have been right up there with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. He says he was just as good as them. I don’t think so. 

            Of the writers on The Carol Burnett Show nobody is funnier than Ken Solms in real life so Tim didn’t know why he wasn’t performing. He and his partner Gail Parent were two of the funniest writers on the show. 

            Tim says a lot of people married off Carol’s show. Tim married Charlene, who he met when she was working as Carol’s assistant. He got the idea for the first Mrs. Wiggins sketch from Charlene’s difficulty in using the intercom. 

            Carol was never really the “boss” boss. He never heard her get cross with anyone even though there were some real lemons on the show. 

            Tim understands why Carol worshipped Lucille Ball but really Carol had already taken comedy beyond Lucy. He thinks she’s the funniest comedienne that ever came down the pike. 

            Tim started out as a jockey because his father was training horses in Cleveland. 

            When Tim got out of the army a friend of his was in radio and invited him to write jokes for an announcer. Tim started out just copying jokes from a joke book. He and Ernie Anderson were writing and doing TV commercials together. Rosemarie thought they were pretty funny, so she pointed them out to Steve Allen. Then Allen had Tim on his show a couple of times which led to him being invited to co-star on McHale’s Navy. 

            The first time Tim made Harvey laugh was when he played a fireman and Harvey was a victim who needed mouth to mouth. Tim was holding Harvey and then asked, “So where ya from?” 

            He thinks Carol is the funniest and most creative person he’s ever met. She thinks and does funny. 

            One time Tim wrapped himself in toilet paper like a mummy and took a picture then put it on his drivers license. He drove home with the toilet paper still on his face and a cop pulled him over and asked to see his license. That’s the one he showed him. The cop just told him to be careful from now on.

            Carol would bite her nails to keep from laughing during the Tudball-Wiggins sketches. 

            Tim said Steve Allen was his favourite show when it was on. 

            Steve Allen’s mother Belle Montrose was considered to be the funniest woman in vaudeville.

            Steve ran away from home at 16 and when he got hungry he took to begging. 

            He became an LA radio announcer in 1946 and also had a comedy show called Smile Time for five nights a week. His show became so popular that the studio audiences were standing room only. He started going into the audience with a microphone to ad lib. 

            When Steve Allen was a TV commentator for professional wrestling he used to make up the names of many wrestling holds. Nobody ever told him he was wrong and some of his names are still in use. He would also throw jokes into his commentary that made it very popular. 

            His first Steve Allen Show ran from 1950 to 1952. 

            His first album was Steve Allen at the Piano in 1951. 

            He was a guest host on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts for which the sponsor was Lipton tea and soup. Steve made Lipton tea and soup on camera and then poured it into Godfrey’s iconic ukalele. TV audiences, including Godfrey thought it was hilarious. 

            While a regular panelist on What’s My Line? in 1953 he coined the question, “Is it bigger than a breadbox?” 

            He created and was the first host of The Tonight Show in 1953 on which he pioneered the “Man on the street” segments that became a late night staple.

            He wrote the lyrics for “Theme from Picnic” in 1955 and it reached #13. 

            He hosted The Steve Allen Show in 1956 and his guest on episode 2 was Elvis. His show was more popular with college students than The Tonight Show. Steve played piano during sight gags; invited audience members to select three notes and he would use them to write a song on the spot; He did a regular satire on radio’s popular The Answer Man; and he would over-dramatically read newspaper letters to the editor. He did live commercials for Polaroid and made a killing because he opted to be paid in Polaroid stock. 

            From 1962 to 1964 he recreated his Tonight Show as The Steve Allen Playhouse. It included a hidden camera at an all night market; He introduced Southern California eccentrics such as Gypsy Boots and Frank Zappa. He once called up Johnny Carson pretending to be a ratings interviewer and asked him what show he was watching. He got Carson to unknowingly plug Steve’s show on national television. 

            In 1964 he became the host of I’ve Got a Secret and The Steve Allen Comedy Hour, which featured the TV debuts of Rob Reiner, Richard Dreyfuss, John Byner, and Ruth Buzzy. 

            Steve wrote the score for A Man Called Dagger in 1967. 

            From 1968 to 1971 he had a new Steve Allen Show, which featured wacky stunts that would influence David Letterman such as being slathered in dog food and letting dogs lick it off. This show introduced Steve Martin and Albert Brooks to television audiences. 

            From 1977 to 1983 he wrote, produced and hosted Meeting of the Minds, which featured actors playing historical figures from different eras arguing with each other on various topics. Some called it the best talk show on TV. His wife Jayne Meadows played most of the female characters. Steve had first conceived on the show in 1959. It was very popular and he won a Peabody and an Emmy for it. 

            He starred in The Benny Goodman Story. 

            He wrote more than 50 books and 8,500 songs. He wrote “This Could Be the Start of Something” (his theme song), “Impossible”, “Pretend You Don’t See Her”. He won a Grammy for his song “Gravy Waltz”. He made a $1000 bet with Frankie Laine that he could write 50 songs a day for a week. He did it in the window of Wallach’s Music City and won the bet. One of the songs” Let’s Go to Church Next Sunday Morning” became a hit. 

            He wrote the books Dumbth: The Lost Art of Thinking, Steve Allen on The Bible Religion and Morality, His last book was Vulgarians at the Gate: Trash TV and Raunch Radio. 

            He said, “Radio is the theatre of the mind while TV is the theatre of the mindless”. “If the Old Testament was a reliable guide on the matter of capital punishment, half the population of the United States would have to be executed”. “Making mental bets is how I lost my mind”. 

            After being hit by another car that broke several ribs that pierced his heart, he said to the driver, “What some people will do for an autograph”. He died a few hours later.

August 28, 1996: I called around for modelling work

Thirty years ago today 

            On Wednesday I called around for work and got a few calls offering me bookings. In the evening I took my guitar to the Art Bar reading series to perform on the open stage.

Steve Carell

            On Tuesday I went to bed at 1:40. I slept fairly well and woke up to pee at 4:30, then went back to sleep until 5:00. After yoga I checked for bedbugs and there were quite a few on the old exit door at the head of my bed. There were also several stuck to the carpet tape on the floor between the head of my bed and the door. 

            I tried to edit an old poem but discovered that the entire document that contains it is in Protected View. I unchecked all the boxes that should remove Protected View but it wouldn’t go away. I spent a lot of time trying to find solutions to the problem in search results but nothing I tried worked. I guess I’ll just transcribe the poem tomorrow. Because of this hassle I didn’t have time to work out any chords for “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian or “Docteur Faust” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the last of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time. 

            Around midday I put some two sided carpet tape on the bottom of the old exit door at the head of my bed. Some of the tape got wasted because it accidentally got stuck to tape that was already there and once it’s stuck to itself it won’t come apart. I ran out of tape so I’ll have to buy some more tomorrow. 

            I weighed 92.95 before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 92.6 kilos at 17:45. 

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

            I had a potato with gravy and my last chicken leg while watching an interview with Steve Carell and another with Steve Lawrence on the topic of Carol Burnett. 

            Carell says Carol exudes joy in everything she does. He considers himself a student of The Carol Burnett Show. It was the first show one would set aside the evening to watch. There’s nothing like watching good people have fun with each other. Her comedy was never at anyone’s expense. 

            Breaking up is only funny when you’re trying not to. 

            The audience was instrumental to the energy of the show. 

            The interviewer tells him that Tina Fey compares The Office to Mama’s Family. Steve agrees.

            Even as a kid Steve thought Carol was hot but he never thought of what she did as being something only a woman could do. That’s why she was an inspiration to people of all genders. 

            Steve and Carol both did voices for Horton Hears a Who but they didn’t meet until he was promoting the movie with her. He says he had lofty expectations of her and she exceeded them. 

            Steve Lawrence met Carol even before he met his wife Eydie Gormé. He did a TV special with Carol Burnett and Dan Dailey. Then Steve and Eydie and Carol and Joe Hamilton became very good friends. Steve and Carol had similar musical tastes. 

            Once when he was on his way to guest on Carol’s show he drove there from his hotel but made a mistake because in California you have to be in the extreme right lane to make a right turn. A motorcycle cop pulled him over after he’d entered the studio but he thought the cop was an actor. Steve didn’t have his license on him and tried to tell the cop he was Steve Lawrence. To prove it he handed a script to the cop and had him read Carol’s part while he responded with the part he’d memorized. Then the cop told him it wasn’t funny. 

            Steve had guested on a lot of shows but Carol’s was the best organized show of any of them.

            Carol would say, “I can’t sing with Eydie Gormé! She’s the best singer in the world!” Eydie would say, “That’s true, but you sing very well yourself.” In the musical number that ended with Carol and Eydie in the front of the Hollywood sign as the camera in the helicopter pulled away to show them in the distance. Carol’s husband Joe Hamilton the producer thought it would be funny to just leave them there. He finally came back to pick them up and neither Carol or Eydie spoke to him until much later.

            When Steve and Eydie did a special on Irving Berlin they insisted on having Carol as a guest because she adored Berlin as much as they did. Carol gave an incredible performance of “Suppertime” on that show. 

            Steve and Eydie lived in the same building as Beverly Sills, who they called “Bubbles”.

            Steve went to a couple of acting classes but the instructor told him he was a natural talent and didn’t need instruction. 

            Paddy Chayefsky wrote a play called The Tenth Man. He got the idea from Steve when he told him that everyone is influenced by others and if you take from nine other people you become the tenth man. 

            Steve Carell originally wanted to be a lawyer but couldn’t think of a reason why. He was a member of Burpee’s Seedy Theatrical Company at Denison University, which is the oldest collegiate improv group in the US. After university he moved to Chicago where he taught improv and performed with Second City. He made his film debut in Curly Sue in 1991. He co-starred on The Dana Carvey Show. In 1999 he became a correspondent on The Daily Show for 288 episodes. He starred in The 40 Year-Old Virgin (which he co-wrote), Little Miss Sunshine, Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life, Get Smart, Date Night, Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2, Despicable Me 3, Despicable Me 4, Minions, Dinner for Schmucks, The Way Way Back, Last Flag Flying, Crazy Stupid Love, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Alexander, Foxcatcher (for which he was nominated for an Oscar), Beautiful Boy, Welcome to Marwen, and Irresistible. He co-starred in Tomorrow Night, Stories USA, Hope Springs, Over the Hedge, Horton Hears a Who, Vice, The Big Short, Battle of the Sexes, Café Society, Anchorman, and Freeheld. He starred on The Office from 2005 to 2011 (for which he wrote two episodes). He starred in Space Force and Rooster. He co-starred on The Patient and The Four Seasons. He made his Broadway debut as the lead in Uncle Vanya in 2024. He co-created the series Angie Tribeca. He owns and operates the Marshfield Hills General Store in Marshfield, Massachusetts.