Thirty years ago today
On Monday it was the eleventh day of my annual fourteen day fruit fast. I no longer felt weak but only bored.
Thursday, 19 March 2026
Wednesday, 18 March 2026
Gwen Verdon
I weighed 87.55 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of four sessions. It went out of tune during most songs but stayed in tune during more songs than the last three sessions.
Around midday I started painting the top and left edges of the bathroom door frame casing with “blue bliss”. Tomorrow I’ll start painting the front of the casing. It will all need at least a second coat.
I weighed 89.15 before lunch.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. The grapes were cheap at $3.90 a kilo but only one bag had firm grapes. I bought a bag of oranges, a pomelo from China (avoiding the ones from Israel), and a pack of toilet paper.
I weighed 87.9 kilos at 19:00.
I was caught up in my journal at 20:19.
I tried again to digitize the cassette tape that has given me problems for over a week but this time I couldn’t even get a waveform. I restarted and increased the recording volume but nothing helped. I followed the suggestions from AI and one of them was to unclick “Allow other applications to take control of this device”. I won’t know until tomorrow if that works.
I had a tomato, cucumber, and avocado salad with lemon juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching season 1, episode 6 of The Carol Burnett Show.
During the opening questions from the audience segment Carol brings Vicki Lawrence out to meet the audience for the first time. She’s very shy and nervous and when an audience member asks how old she is she says she doesn’t know. She finally says she’s 18.
The first skit involves Carol as the wife of Dr. Jekyll. William Schallert plays Henry Jekyll, who goes against his wife’s urgings, has a drink and turns into a wolf man. Eventually Mrs. Jekyll gives in to join him, drinks the potion and turns into Phyllis Diller.
Then Carol brings out Diller to do her stand-up routine. She’s wearing a coat made of mink tails. She says her husband Fang tried to leave her but was arrested for leaving the scene of an accident.
The second guest is dancer Gwen Verdon who sings and dances to “Feelin Groovy” by Paul Simon.
The second sketch re-enacts a memory of when a foreign exchange student came to live with Carol, her husband, and her sister Chrissie. As they are preparing for their guest, Carol’s husband resents the idea of having another teenager around. But then she turns out to be a gorgeous woman and her husband couldn’t be more welcoming while Carol wants to kill her. But then she gets a call from her neighbour who tells her they got their new maid from Sweden mixed up with the exchange student. They are relieved until the student turns out to be a teenage boy.
Bobby Gentry sings her song Bugs plus an interpretation of “The Look of Love” by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
The next skit is set in a courtroom and the murder trial of Rodney Harrison played by Lyle Waggoner. But the judge played by Phillis Diller is immediately in love with Rodney and pleads him innocent. Carol is the prosecutor who objects and says he should get the chair. The judge says he’s going to get the couch instead.
Then there is a musical performance of a medley of Beatles songs featuring Carol, Phyllis, Bobby, and Gwen dressed as Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band.
Gwen Verdon was afflicted with rickets at age 2 and had to wear leg braces and orthopedic boots. Her mother put her in dance classes when she was 3 to strengthen her legs. She made her stage debut as a tap dancer at age 6. At age 11 she performed as a ballerina in the movie The King Steps Out. She continued performing into senior high school when at 17 she eloped, got pregnant and gave up dancing for the five year marriage. At the age of 23 she became an assistant choreographer and gave dance and walk lessons to actors like Jane Russell, Betty Grable, Lana Turner and Marilyn Monroe. In 1953 she starred in Can Can for which she won a Tony Award. She made her TV debut on Goodyear Playhouse in 1954. She starred in Bob Fosse’s Damn Yankees in 1955 and won a second Tony. It ran for 1019 performances. She reprised her role in the film adaptation. She recorded an album called The Girl I Left Home For. She and Fosse collaborated on New Girl in Town and Redhead bringing her two more Tonys. Her album from Redhead won a Grammy award. She married Fosse in 1960. She took six years off to raise their daughter and then starred in Sweet Charity, which ran more than 600 performances. Shirley MacLaine starred in the film version but she was coached by Verdon. She originated the role of Roxie Hart in Chicago. She appeared in five episodes of Magnum PI, and 3 episodes of Webster. She was nominated for three Emmys for Magnum PI, Dream On, and Homicide. When she died they dimmed all the marquee lights on Broadway.
March 18, 1996: My daughter and I made mud pies
Thirty years ago today
On Sunday it was relatively warm so my daughter and I made mud pies in the back yard. My landlady Helga accused us of using her baking pan but I had the exact same kind.
Tuesday, 17 March 2026
Gloria Loring
On Monday morning I collected more images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I have 214 so far and I think the end is in sight. I should have enough at least by the end of the week.
I weighed 87.65 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it went out of tune during most of the songs except for one in the middle and the last few.
At 13:42 I headed downtown to the U of T Graduate School of Dentistry for my post op appointment with Dr. Xia. I brought my denture but it still doesn’t fit because the bone graft has changed the shape of the gap. He showed me an image of the retainer that I could get made but said it would only be cosmetic and wouldn’t help with my chewing or singing. It looked to me like it would impede my singing. I asked if my present denture could be altered to fit and he said possibly but he was not allowed to do it because it wasn’t made at the school. I suggested I could see if my dentist could do it but he advised me to wait two months until there is further healing of the bone graft because fitting a denture could agitate the area. He says he’s graduating this year and so when I see him on May 20 it may be the last time and then another student will take over. It feels weird to get used to a periodontist and then have them just go away.
I weighed 88.2 kilos at 16:10.
I weighed 87.9 kilos at 19:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since December 16.
I was caught up in my journal at 20:30.
I tried to record again from cassette through audio interface to Audacity the same tape I’ve been trying to digitize for over a week. I just tried to record the live performance of my song “Megaphor” which has been recording as just noise with bits of an older recording coming through. It’s still just noise. I tried it in mono but it’s the same. I changed a few more settings and I’ll see tomorrow if they made a difference.
I had a tomato, cucumber, and avocado salad with lime juice while watching season 1, episode 4 of The Carol Burnett Show.
During questions from the audience someone asks Carol her measurements. She says, “38-26-30 but I won’t tell you in what order”.
The special guest is Lucille Ball and she is in the first skit with Carol. They play two women on their lunchbreak who try an exotic looking place called Café Argentine. The maître d is dressed like a German officer from WWI and he immediately barks commands at them. They are afraid to stay but more afraid of trying to leave. The menu has only German food. A periscope rises from the middle of the table next to them and turns towards them. When they try to leave a German soldier in a WWII uniform points a gun at them. When they demand to see the manager, Hitler comes out so they scream and run.
The second skit could only be understood if one was familiar with TV commercials of 1967. Carol is loading a washing machine when a fist reaches up from inside and punches her. That’s probably a parody of the Action chlorine bleach ad in which a muscular hand rises from the machine. She has to wrestle with it to load everything. Then the machine elongates upwards and money flies out. She opens the window and a bunch of pigeons fly in. She eats some margarine and gets an enormous crown. That’s definitely the old Imperial Margarine ad. She goes out to hang up her laundry and is pierced by a knight’s lance. That comes from the 1965 Ajax laundry detergent commercial featuring a white knight wielding a lance and riding a white horse.
Next is a song and dance number featuring Carol and Vicki in 60s mini dresses singing and dancing to “I Dig Rock and Roll Music” by Paul Stookey (of Peter Paul and Mary), James Mason, and Dave Dixon.
The third skit features Tim Conway as a news anchor at a station where the news machine is broken and the production is poorly organized. When taking calls from the TV audience the only call he gets is from his wife giving him a grocery list.
Next Carol and Lucy come out and Lucy wants to meet Lyle Wagonner the announcer. When he comes out he and Lucy begin kissing and say they’ve been practicing all day.
The fourth skit has Carol and Lucy as competing airport car rental clerks. Carol works for Mavis and Lucy for Gertz. Tim Conway comes to rent a car and they fight over him. He is physically and mentally pulled back and forth as the two women make counter offers. Finally Tim takes the bus.
Next, the musical guest Gloria Loring sings “Goin Out of My Head” by Ted Rendazzo and Bobby Weinstein; and “Try To Remember” by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt. Her facial expressions act out the words of the song annoyingly as she sings.
The fifth skit shows the life of the wife of a superhero. Carol is married to Superguy who comes home from work but doesn’t know his own strength in the domestic setting. Casual movements smash things. He kisses her and sucks all the air out of her body. When he laughs she is continuously blown away and sucked back. When they go to bed her pajamas are a suit of armour.
The final part is a 19th Century saloon themed song and dance number with Carol and Lucy dressed up as old style saloon girls. The song is “Belly Up to the Bar Boys” by Meredith Wilson from the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown.
Gloria Loring started her professional career as an entertainer at 14, singing with the folk group Those Four. She made her TV debut on The Carol Burnett Show in 1967. Her first single “Brooklyn” made it to the top 100. She has recorded 12 albums and had a hit record with “Friends and Lovers”. She co-wrote the theme songs for Different Strokes and The Facts of Life. She recorded a meditation record. She played Liz Chandler in 748 episodes of Days of Our Lives. She’s a spokesperson for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, a keynote speaker. She’s the author of six books, most of them about parenting a child with diabetes. She has a book about coincidence. She published the Days of Our Lives Celebrity Cookbook for diabetes research. She had a musical show of TV theme songs. She created a musical motivation seminar called Life Doesn’t Have to Be a Soap Opera. She was married to Canadian actor Alan Thicke.
March 17, 1996: My daughter and I went to the playground on Dundas
Thirty years ago today
On Saturday my daughter came to my place for the weekend. We went to the nearby playground on Dundas.
Monday, 16 March 2026
Vicki Lawrence
I weighed 88.25 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it went out of tune during most songs, except for “The Deserter” and a few at the end.
Around midday I rode to Freshco because yesterday I’d forgotten to buy high acid vinegar at No Frills. When I came back I used some of it to clean the warm mist humidifier that’s been running all week.
I weighed 88.75 kilos before lunch.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.
I weighed 88.45 kilos at 18:35.
I was caught up in my journal at 19:36.
Once again I tried to record from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity my rehearsal of “Me and Gravity” and “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” with Brian Haddon and Arjan. The result was just as distorted as before despite my turning off “inst” and “air” on my Scarlett 2i2 audio interface and having downloaded and installed the driver for the Scarlett. I’ve always had the 48v button on because I didn’t know what it does. Apparently it provides a power boost for microphones and it’s unnecessary for what I’m doing and could cause distortion. So tomorrow I’ll try again with that turned off and hopefully that will solve the problem but it hasn’t been a problem for previous digitizations of tapes. I don’t know what else to do.
I had a tomato, cucumber, and avocado salad with lime juice while watching the first episode of The Carol Burnett Show.
The show begins with Carol herself warming up the audience. Normally a standup comedian or a professional MC would be hired for that kind of job but Carol got the idea from The Gary Moore Show to do it herself. She introduces the show’s announcer Lyle Waggoner and pretends to be enamored with him. When he does a sample of his announcing she says, “Did you hear those shoulders?”
In the first sketch Carol plays former child star Shirley Dimple, who even though she’s married with two children, still dresses and talks like a little girl and lives with her fairy godmother.
The first guest who became the traditional first guest of every season of the show, was Jim Nabors. He sang “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” in both English and Italian (“Io che non vivo”) by Pino Donnagio and Vito Pallavicini in Italian with English lyrics by Vicki Wickham and Simon Napier-Bell.
The second sketch involves Carol and Jim as two people forced into inactivity at a ski lodge because Carol’s arm is in a cast and Jim’s leg is in a cast. They are both very clumsy and keep hitting each other with their casts until they give up and crawl away in separate directions.
Next Carol and Jim do a song and dance skit that’s also a sample of Broadway songs.
The third sketch was based on Carol’s own life. She raised her younger sister Christine from the age of 12 until she was 20. It became difficult when she was 16 because Carol got married. In the sketch Harvey Korman plays Carol’s husband and it’s about how annoyed he is over living with a teenager.
The 18 year old Vickie Lawrence plays Christine. Harvey complains she’s always at home and wonders why she doesn’t go out and protest. Carol says, “Not so loud. She’s very sensitive about being sixteen and never having been arrested”. Carol has invited the neighbour Willie Kessler to take Christine for a walk. Christine asks, “What am I? A dog?” Carol had to pay Willie a dollar. Christine is taller than Willie so Carol tells her to slump. Christine says, “First you ruin my evening and now my posture”. After they leave Carol and Harvey start to worry about Christine but she comes home after dropping Willie in a mud puddle.
Next Carol’s character The Charwoman is mopping a very hip discotheque called The Angry Hand after closing time. She turns on the various lighting effects until she starts fantasizing that the place is crowded with young mod dancers and she are dancing to rock and roll with psychedelic camera effects. She finishes by sitting on her bucket and singing “Georgy Girl” by Tom Springfield and Jim Dale.
Vicki Lawrence started singing and dancing at an early age. She was a cheerleader and was voted “Most likely to succeed” by her class in high school. She sang with The Young Americans from 1965 to 1967 and appeared in the Academy Award winning documentary of the same name. She sent Carol Burnett a newspaper clipping showing their two pictures side by side to show how much she resembled Carol. She asked Carol for advise on how to win the Miss Fireball Contest she had entered. Carol had been looking for a teenager to play her sister in the “Carol and Sis” sketches for her upcoming variety show and so she attended the contest, which Vicki won, and after several auditions by others, she was hired. She was nominated for six Emmy Awards and won one for her performances on the Carol Burnett Show. In 1973 she had a hit record with “The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia”. She also had lesser hits with “He Did it With Me” and “Ships in the Night”. She put out a disco album called Newborn Woman in 1979 and had a minor hit with “Don’t Stop the Music”. After her 11 years on The Carol Burnett Show she starred in Mama’s Family from 1983 to 1990. She then hosted Win Lose or Draw and became the first successful female game show host. She was a celebrity contestant 90 times on The New $25,000 Pyramid, 44 times on Super Password, 45 times on Hollywood Squares, and 49 times on Password Plus. She appeared on five episodes of Laverne and Shirley and five episodes of Hannah Montana. Her talk show Vicki! ran from 1992 to 1994, for which she was nominated for an Emmy. Her husband Bobby Russell wrote “Little Green Apples”, “Honey” and “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia”. She says that performing on The Carol Burnett Show was The Harvard School of Comedy for her, with Carol Burnett and Harvey Korman serving as her mentors. The character of “Mama” was written for Carol but she wanted to play Eunice and for Vickie to play Mama. In 2001 she started a one woman show called “Vicki and Mama: a Two Woman Show”. In 2019 she co-starred in the sitcom The Cool Kids.
March 16, 1996: Brian Haddon and I rehearsed for our gig at Fat Albert's
Thirty years ago today
On Friday Brian Haddon and I rehearsed for our upcoming feature at Fat Albert’s. In the evening we performed on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)