William Conrad

            On Monday morning I worked out the chords for the first verse of “L'anguille (The Eel)” by Boris Vian. The second verse should have the same chords. 

            I memorized and translated the chorus of “Les anthropophages” (The Cannibals) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are three verses left to learn. 

            I weighed 90.45 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 pretty much the whole time. 

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

            At around 13:20 it smelled like burning plastic outside and there was smoke coming from behind the Dollarama. Maybe somebody lit a fire or tossed a cigarette in the dumpster.

            I weighed 91.1 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 90.5 kilos at 18:10. 

            I worked some more on getting caught up in my journal but was still behind at suppertime. 

            I had two small potatoes with gravy and my last two chicken wings while watching season 8, episode 16 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup someone asks Carol if her daughters have any favourite characters that she plays. She says she’ll have to ask them but she thinks they like Mama’s Family because lately they’ve been going around the house talking like they’re from the southern United States. 

            Carol acknowledges the LA County March of Dimes poster child Carmen Louise. She goes into the audience to give the 8 year old a kiss. 

            The Jackson 5 perform the 1974 song “The Life of the Party” by Clarence Drayton, Hal Davis and Tamy Smith. 

            In the first sketch Harvey is at a party and learns that Cookie Davis, who he had a fling with, is coming. Harvey has to warn his wife before Cookie says anything. He draws her away from the people she’s chatting with and sits with her. He says he wants to tell hewr something but is worried about her nerves. She says she’s overcome her nervous condition and is totally fine now. He says that some of the women in his office show off their bodies in sexy outfits. Carol says “Mmhm” but her right eye begins to twitch slightly. He admits that it’s a turn-on when they do, and the right side of Carol’s face gets a small spasm. He starts telling her about his kiss with Cookie Davis and now Carol’s nervousness has fully returned. They are sitting on a wicker couch and Carol has already broken off a piece. She then rips open a pillow and nervously removes the stuffing. By the time Carol meets the perky and effervescent Cookie she is absolutely spastic. Cookie goes to mingle and Harvey and Carol are leaving when a handsome man approaches and says, “Carol!” Suddenly Carol’s nervousness is gone as he takes her in his arms and Harvey begins to twitch. Carol introduces their milkman John. 

            William Conrad sings a tribute to silent movies in a a very bad singing voice. The dancers act out many of the tropes of silent films. Later on Conrad does a very good silent impersonation of Oliver Hardy. Bill Richmond, as Stan Laurel, eating a banana, comes up beside him. Ollie tries to indicate to him with gestures that he wants some of his banana. Stan reaches in his pocket and hands him a banana but it is actually the peel of the banana that Stan is eating. Ollie takes the banana from him and gives him the peel. Stan tosses it on the sidewalk and a cop slips upon it. Since Ollie is the one eating the banana the cop thinks he tossed it. The cop hits Ollie on the head with his club, then Stan takes the banana back and walks away. Then Conrad finishes the song. 

            Harvey and William play two doctors having a drink after a round of golf. The waiter brings a phone to their table and it’s a call for William from a Mr. Perks. But William nervously says he knows no one named Perks and addresses the caller as Mr. Parks. He quickly tells the caller he’ll be over in an hour and hangs up. he tries to re-engage Harvey in their original conversation but Harvey confronts him and says, “You’ve been seeing George Perks!” At first he denies that he’s been treating Harvey’s patient but finally admits it. This is another skit in which the professional interactions of men are treated as romantic relationships. It started when Perks came to William with itching stitches and had him remove them. Harvey is hurt that he wasn’t enough for his patient. William tells Harvey that Perks has been to every doctor in town. He says it’s better that he hears it from him than reading about it in some sleezy medical journal. Then William reveals that he’s having an affair with this wife. Harvey asks “How can you do that to me?” William starts to explain but Harvey stops him and says, “I mean, if you have good news and bad news, give the good news first”. 

            In the Mama’s Family sketch, Mama (Vicki) is tidying up her home when there is a knock. She happily answers it but is disappointed to see it’s her daughter Eunice (Carol) and her husband Ed (Harvey). Mama tells them she’s got a boyfriend. She says he’s spent more money on her in the last week than Ed makes in a month. Willie arrives, embraces Mama and gives her a pat on the bum. Ed starts to tell Willie about the new shopping mall where he owns a hardware store but Mama interrupts him. She says, “Don’t think you can impress Willie! He’s got a whole flock of shopping malls and each one has a hardware store that’s three times the size of your puny little store!” Ed asks, “Is that another needle?” Mama says, “I’m only stating facts. Why are you so touchy on the subject of your failure in life?” Mama says Willie is taking her to Funland on Saturday. Eunice reminds Mama that she promised to babysit her boys on Saturday so she could go to Nancy Lee’s shower. Mama says she’s not the only babysitter in town. Ed says she’s the only free one. Willie says he has to go to New York next week and asks Mama to come with him. Mama says she’s tempted to take him up on that and goes to get some beer. Eunice follows her into the kitchen and confronts her about letting a man paw her in front of her children with their father dead for only nine years. She asks Mama if she’s really going to New York with that dirty old man? Mama says, “I’ll not have you talk that way about a man who could become her father. Eunice is horrified. She says, “My daddy was the only man in your life!” Mama scandalizes Eunice by telling her that she first knew Willie before she ever met her father and she wasn’t a nun. Eunice starts banging her own head against the refrigerator. Mama says, “Quit gettin that greasy hairspray all over my ice box!” They go back to the living room and sit on the couch on either side of Willie while leaning towards each other and shouting. Eunice says Mama’s gonna leave her in this one horse town with Freddie the failure as she points to Ed. Ed shouts, “Why don’t you just tattoo it on my forehead: ‘F-A-Y-L-U-R’!” Eunice tells Ed she should have kicked him out a long time ago. Mama tells Eunice she should have never brought her home from the hospital. Eunice and Ed leave. Willie comments that Eunice is sure high strung. Mama says she can’t imagine who she takes after. She asks, “Are we goin ta dinner or ain’t we?” Willie says he’s gonna buy her the biggest, best dinner she ever had in her life. Then he hands her a large amount of cash and walks away. Mama seems fine with that as she sits there counting the money. 

            Carol introduces The Jackson 5: Jackie, Jermaine, Tito, Marlon, Michael, and Randy. She tells them she’d like to be in a vocal group. They tell her she would have had to start young so Carol walks away and lets them do a medley of vocal group songs. They do The Mills Brothers “Opus One”; The Andrews Sisters “Bei Mir Bist Du Schön”; The Coasters “Yakety Yak”; The Supremes “Stop in the Name of Love”; and finally their own “Dancing Machine”. 

            Carol gets Randy to agree to sing “The Beat Goes On” by Sonny and Cher with her but 8 year old Janet Jackson steps up to say that’s her part. So Janet and Randy sing and dance to the song.

            William Conrad was a fighter pilot during WWII and a producer-director of The Armed Forces Radio Service. He played over 7500 parts on the radio, including Marshall Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke. He produced the radio series The Hermit’s Cave from 1940 to 1944. He narrated the radio series Escape. He made his uncredited film debut in Pillow to Post in 1945. He made his credited film debut in The Killers in 1946. He directed 2 episodes of the Gunsmoke TV series, 6 episodes of 77 Sunset Strip; and episodes of The Rifleman, Bat Masterson, Route 66, Have Gun Will Travel, He directed the movies , Two on a Guillotine, My Blood Runs Cold, and Brainstorm. He produced the movie Countdown. He co-starred in The Sword of Monte Cristo, The Racket, Five Against the House, Johnny Concho, The Ride Back, 30, Body and Soul, He was the narrator for the TV series The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Dudley Do Right of the Mounties, The Highwayman, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and The Fugitive. He narrated the 1971 anti-pollution public service announcement that starred Iron Eyes Cody as a First Nations man shedding a tear over pollution. He became famous when he starred in Cannon from 1971 to 1976. From 1987 to 1992 he starred in Jake and the Fatman. He starred in the short-lived series Nero Wolfe.

June 9, 1996: It rained a bit so we played inside

Thirty years ago today 

            On Saturday it rained a bit and so my daughter and I might have played inside before I took her back to her mother.

Joan Rivers

            On Sunday morning I worked out the chords for the fourth line of the first verse of “L'anguille (The Eel)” by Boris Vian. There are two lines left. 

            I memorized the first verse of “Les anthropophages” (The Cannibals) by Serge Gainsbourg, then translated the first verse and half the chorus. 

            I weighed 90.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune for a handful of songs. 

            I almost had another toilet emergency after song practice. The toilet plugged briefly but I got it cleared again without too much effort. 

            I weighed 91.25 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar, plus a glass of limeade. 

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

            I weighed 90.7 kilos at 17:45, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since May 28. 

            I was behind on my journal again because of dozing off the night before and worked on getting caught up. I was still behind at suppertime. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with olive paste, marinara, tomato pesto, a sliced hot Italian sausage, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 8, episode 14 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup someone asks Carol if she believes in saving money. She answers that she does. The woman says she has a letter for her that she doesn’t want to mail so she comes up and gives it to her. 

            Vincent Price plays the author of a best selling mystery novel and he is doing a book signing event when Carol’s character Alice Portnoy the Fireside Girl approaches him with her donation can as she collects to send a Fireside Girl to camp. Vincent wants to get rid of her and gives her a dime. She sarcastically asks if he’s sure he can afford that much? He adds a quarter. As she’s leaving she says for him to say hello to his platinum blonde wife. He calls her back and tells her his wife isn’t blond. She says she saw her in a car with him the other night. He says he was teaching his niece to drive and she asks, “In the back seat?” He puts $5 in her can and tells her to forget about it. She says a $20 would dim her memory forever so he gives her that. A TV crew arrives to interview him. She says if he needs an endorsement she’s available. The interviewer asks if she’s read Vincent’s book. She says “12 times”. The TV guy thinks it’s of great human interest to put Alice on the air. She tells Vincent that they should discuss the mistakes he made in his novel before she goes on TV. She points out several flaws in story that any editor would have caught before her. The big flaw is that he had mentioned early in the story that the character who turns out to be the murderer in the end is left handed, but a left handed person couldn’t have committed the crime. He doesn’t want her to mention it. By now he’s given her all his cash and so before he talks about his book he gives a big plug for the Fireside Girls and puts his watch in the donation can. 

            Carol and Vickie sing a list of famous singers and comedians who were born in Brooklyn, like Jackie Gleason, Jimmy Durante, Mae West, Micky Spillane, George Gershwin, Buddy Hacket, Connie Stevens, Woody Allen, Rita Hayworth, Norman Mailer, Mickey Rooney, Barbara Stanwick, Clara Bow, Walt Whitman, Zero Mostel, Barbara Streisand, Phil Silvers, Shirley Booth, Arthur Miller, Danny Kaye, and finally Joan Rivers, and this is her introduction.

            Joan comes out and says there’s one little mistake. She’s not from Brooklyn but from England and she worked for years and spent a lot of money to get her Brooklyn accent. But she’s only joking because she is from Brooklyn. She left Brooklyn as a little flat chested girl and now she’s a little flat chested woman. But not tonight because she bought a rubber bra and now if she falls down she’ll bounce back up. She says her wedding night was a disaster. Her husband said, “Let me help you with the buttons” but she was naked. She singles out a couple in the audience and asks, “Wasn’t it better in the beginning, with the little nightgown and the games?” She dances around and calls out “Catch me, catch me!” She says after 9 years they still plays catch me catch me but they walk. She says she’s letting herself go because she’s a first wife. First wives don’t know that they’re supposed to look good. They just think they have to clean the house every six months. Second wives don’t have to bother dusting. She tells the married women in the audience to show their rings and she’’ be able to tell if they’re a first or second wife. She gets it wrong with the third one who says she’s a second wife. Joan looks at the ring and says, “You must be on welfare!” She slaps the husband and asks, “Where’s the ring?” Joan says first wives get a lousy ring and they say “Thank you!” She says men like their second wives better and points out how attractive the second wife she was talking to is. She points almost angrily at the blonde and says, “This is what they like! Good looking and shallow!” There are always a lot of high school kids in the audience because there were many school trips as the show was taped during school hours. Joan addresses the high school girls in the audience and says, “Men look for looks, so don’t waste your time learning to read a book”. She says she knows a stupid woman who says, “God made me an animal! All I do is sleep and make love!” and men love it. Joan says she tells her husband that she does the same thing as her but he says, “But she doesn’t do both at the same time”. Joan says the only reason they have a child is because her husband tosses and turns in his sleep. 

            Carol and Harvey’s characters, the theatrical married couple Mundane and Funt are about to perform their 200th and final performance of the play Second Honeymoon. They are just about to leave their dressing room for the stage when their understudies (played by Vicki and Vincent) come in. Funt and Mundane mock them because they never had a chance to perform their parts in all 200 nights. Funt and Mundane head for the stage but Vicki and Vincent have other plans. In the play they are about to leave their apartment for Milan and Funt goes to the bedroom to fetch their bags, but Vincent is waiting for him on the other side holding a suitcase and says he’s replaced the ailing prop man. he drops the heavy suitcase and breaks Funt’s left foot. He offers to replace him but Funt returns, limping to the stage. Mundane leaps into his arms but because of his foot they both collapse. When they get up Funt tells her to get her coat but Vickie is waiting, saying she’s filling in for the wardrobe. She “accidentally” steps on Mundane’s foot. Mundane asks for her water but Vickie gives her lemon juice and so now she has to deliver her lines through a pucker. Mundane and goes to stand by the window and leans with her hands behind her. Vicki slams the window down on her hands. Mundane says she’s leaving him and so Funt goes to get his coat. Vincent is waiting and knocks him out, then replaces him in the scene. He asks if Mundane is sure they can’t work things out but she says no so he goes to get his golf bag. But Funt has recovered him and throws him back through the door. Mundane walks behind the couch where Vicki is hiding and knocks her out to finish her line. But then Mundane recovers and stuns Vicki to finish her line. Mundane is about to rush into Funt’s arms when Victor pulls him out the door and replaces him. Funt hits him with a golf club and returns to Mundane’s arms. Then Mundane sits on the couch but Vicki flips it back so Mundane is behind it and we see Vicki jumping several times and hear the sound of cracking. She runs to Funt’s arms but he pushes her out the door and goes to Mundane but when he rights the couch she falls either dead or unconscious to the floor as he shouts for the curtain.

            They pay tribute to some of the new TV shows that came out this season. Police Lady is a parody of Police Woman with Vicki in the Angie Dickinson role. She’s on a date with her boyfriend Mitch played by Victor. She insists that he treat her like a woman and not a police woman but she’s already ticketed his car. 

            Chiquita and the Man is a parody of Chico and the Man with Carol playing Charo playing Chiquita. Harvey plays the Jack Albertson part as Chiquita comes to ask for a job as a mechanic. She tells him she can fix cars and she does a lot of sudden hip thrusting that causes things to fall off the walls. He hires her but as she is rotating her hips he has a heart attack. He asks her to get his pills but she says it’s not her job. 

            Rhonda is a parody of the Mary Tyler Moore spin-off Rhoda with Joan Rivers playing Valerie Harper’s role. She says she moved to Minneapolis so she would be younger in a different time zone. But now she’s back east again and says, “New York, this is your last chance”. Suddenly two big tough looking guys mug her, grab her purse, then run away. Rhonda shouts, “I recognized you Mary!” 

            Tony Tallahassee and Dusk is a parody of Tony Orlando and Dawn with Harvey as Tony and Carol and Vicki as Dawn. They do a parody of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree” until the real Tony Orlando and Dawn come out on stage looking mad and they slink away. 

            The Walnuts is a parody of The Waltons with Carol playing John Girl and narrating. They are all sitting at the dinner table with Vicki and Harvey as the grandparents, Joan and Vincent as the parents, and four of the Ernie Flatt dancers filling out the rest of the children, including the black guy. They all talk about the boring things that happened to them that day and are very excited about them such as seeing dragonfly hover over the pig stye. There’s a knock on the door and a rich city man is there. The Walnuts are frightened. He wants to pay them a million dollars so he can build an amusement park on Walnut Mound. Some of the kids don’t know what money is. John Girl admits she could use some new ink for her pen since she’s been writing with it empty for three years. But she asks, “Can money buy the joys of poverty and the ecstasy of drudgery? I think not!” They chase away the rich man. Later we see the whole family in one big bed saying goodnight. John Girl the narrator speaks of how she eventually got rich writing and selling the story of the Walnuts and thinks back on how dumb they all were. 

            Vicki in her snooty character voice talks about Peter and the Wolf being a concert piece designed to introduce the instruments of the orchestra to children’s tiny minds. To introduce the different kinds of singing voices they have designed a piece called Sarah and the Moose. A choir does a chorus and Vincent comes out to a podium to talk about it. A chorus is made up of basses who sing from their chests, tenors who sing from their noses, altos who sing from their sinuses, and sopranos who sing from we don’t really know where. The basses will sing the theme of the moose; the altos will sing the theme of Sarah; the tenors sing the theme of the Forest Ranger; the sopranos sing the theme of Sarah’s Aunt Fanny. In the story Sarah wakes up on hir birthday and finds a moose call under her pillow. She takes it to the forest ranger. They both try it but no moose comes. Aunt Fanny arrives and says that’s no way to call a moose. She takes the moose call but accidentally swallows it. Her speech is now a moose mating call and a moose arrives. Everybody runs but the moose catches Fanny and they get married. 

            Joan Rivers earned a Bachelors degree in English and Anthropology in 1954. Her first stage name was Pepper January. She was in a comedy team with William Perry called Joanie and Bill. She was in the comedy team Jim, Jake and Joan and they appeared in the film Once Upon a Coffeehouse. She was a writer for Candid Camera and also served as the bait to lure people in. She had a one night stand with Robert Mitcham in the 60s while married to Edgar. She made her Broadway debut in Fun City in 1972. The narrated The Adventures of Letterman from 1972 to 1976 for The Electric Company. She made her directorial debut in 1978 in Rabbit Test, which she also wrote. In 1982 she was appointed by Johnny Carson a permanent guest host of The Tonight Show where she appeared 303 times. She left in 1986 to host The Late Show and Johnny never spoke to her again. She hosted Saturday Night Live in 1983. She co-starred on Fashion Police. She hosted The Joan Rivers Show from 1983 to 1993. She was nominated for 8 Emmy Awards but only won once for her talk show. She starred in Joan and Melissa for three years. She was nominated for a Grammy Award for her album What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most? She posthumously won for Diary of a Mad Diva. She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1994 for her performance in Sally Marr and her Escorts. She won the second season of Celebrity Apprentice in 2009. She hosted the reality show How’d You Get So Rich? in 2009. She wrote I Hate Everyone… Starting with Me; Enter Talking; Still Talking; Bouncing Back; Don’t Count the Candles; Having a Baby Can be a Scream; Men Are Stupid and They Like Big Boobs; and The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abromowitz. She became a billionaire from her line of jewellery alone. She said the ideal childbirth experience is to be knocked out through the whole experience and then woken up when the hairdresser arrives. She said there is not one female comic who was a beautiful little girl. She joked that her husband committed suicide because when they were making love she took the bag off her head. On Joan Collins, “I remember when that bitch was older than I was”. She said if older women can afford it they should get plastic surgery.

June 8, 1996: It was cooler than usual

Thirty years ago today 

            On Saturday I picked up my daughter from her mother’s place in Scarborough and she spent the weekend with me. It was cooler than usual and it rained a bit but we might have gone to the playground anyway.

Alan Alda

            On Saturday morning I worked out the chords for half of the first verse of “L'anguille (The Eel)” by Boris Vian. 

            I decided that the proper set of lyrics for “Les anthropophages” (The Cannibals) by Serge Gainsbourg are those provided on the Dalida YouTube channel. I sang along a couple of times and then started working on memorizing the first verse. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos before breakfast. 

            I uploaded the video I isolated from season 7, episode 9 of The Carol Burnett Show of Vickie Lawrence singing and dancing to  “Born to Hand Jive” written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey for the 1971 musical Grease.

            I played my Martin during song practice for the last of four sessions and it went out of tune shortly after starting every song. 

            Around midday I rode down to No Frills where I bought five bags of green grapes, two packs of blueberries, some bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a pack of chicken legs, a box of spoon sized shredded wheat, three bags of microfiltered skim milk, two containers of skyr, and two bags of Miss Vickie’s potato chips. 

            I weighed 90 kilos at 14:10. I had a toasted Montreal style bagel with peanut butter, five-year-old cheddar, and a glass of lemonade. 

            I took a siesta from 15:00 to 16:45. It was too late for a bike ride downtown so I just rode to Ossington and Bloor. 

            I weighed 90.4 kilos at 18:00. 

            The old guy who used to sit on the bench outside my building playing Italian pop songs, drinking beer, shouting “Opa!” to Italians, and “Bella!” to women who walk by, has been absent since they took the bench away. Bout now he walks with a Rollator that he can also sit on and tonight he was sitting under my window. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:45. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity a recording session at Mike’s Place what are probably the earliest recordings of my song “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy”. But I had to turn the gain on the right channel up to maximum to get a signal. The left channel recorded fine but there was nothing but a hum in the right channel. The problem wasn’t the tape this time because the same thing happened when I switched to the radio. Also when I switched the black (left) jack and the red (right) jack in the interface then only the right channel worked. The stereo breakout is brand new but the cable that runs from the stereo goes through one extension cable and two cable adaptors before it connects to the stereo breakout. I’ve had the cable and the adaptors for decades and so maybe they’re just too old. Maybe I need to get a cable that runs directly from the stereo to my audio interface. 

            I grilled four spicy Italian sausages and cut up two of them to put on two halves of a Montreal style bagel as pizza with marinara, tomato pesto, olive paste, and five-year-old cheddar. I had them with a glass of Barking Squirrel lager while watching season 8, episode 13 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            This is a Christmas show and during the audience warmup several audience members line up to give Carol presents. Someone gives her a pillow with UCLA (Carol’s alma mater) on it; another gives her a home made pin cushion; a teenage girl gives Carol a rose and says she has another for Alan Alda. So Alan comes out and kisses her on the cheek, then she bursts into tears. Carol says to Alan, “You horrible person!”; another girl gives Carol a plant; and another a letter. 

            In the Mama’s Family sketch it’s Christmas day and Eunice is preparing for a visit from her brother Larry for the first time in five years. Ed wonders if he’s as strange as ever. Eunice says, “Just cause he ain’t married that don’t make him strange… necessarily”. Larry arrives (played by Alan). Eunice says last she heard he was drawing pictures for a living. He confirms that he’s a commercial illustrator. She says she heard he lost his job but he explains that he finished his job, however they aren’t really listening. She says she got her son a Killer Kelly doll for Christmas because he said that was what he wanted but he only played with it for five minutes. Eunice sees that Mama is approaching the door so she tells Larry to hide so they can get a picture of her look of surprise when she sees him. Mama hugs Larry excitedly but when she sees the camera flash she threatens to go home. Eunice was expecting her sister Ellen and her family to come but Mama said they had other plans so Eunice is insulted. Mama tells her Ellen couldn’t have known she was going to pull this surprise stunt. Larry says he feels kind of bad but Mama tells him not to worry because he never could time anything right anyway. She tells him that later he should visit Ellen cause “her house is really the Ritz. Nothin like this crackerbox.” Larry gives a gift that he says is for her whole family. It’s a big book entitled “A Layman’s Guide to the Universe”. She is clearly disappointed. Larry gives Mama a cheque and explains that he didn’t know what she needed. She says it’s very nice and she didn’t expect him to take the time to go out and shop for a real present. “I just appreciate you taking the five seconds it took to scribble that thing off”. Larry opens his gift from Eunice and it’s a paint by numbers set. She says, “I just knew you’d enjoy it what with you being a drawer and all”. Mama says to Larry, “Well, what do you say?” Larry forces out a “Thank you”. Eunice says, “It’s no wonder you can’t hold down a job when you got that kind of an attitude” Larry tries to explain that he works by individual contracts. Mama says to Eunice, “What do you know about art? It’s a jungle out there and there’s probably a million reasons for Larry always getting fired!” Larry blows up and shouts that he’s never been fired. He adds that he’s doing very well and has a skyline studio. And when he’s not working people come over to visit and when they do they let him finish a sentence. He throws down the paint by numbers set and leaves. Eunice just says, “Well he’s sure got a lot to learn about the Christmas spirit!” 

            Carol plays a department store clerk and Alan plays a store Santa. They are both having a bad day, especially Alan who gets bitten by the last kid on his lap before the store closes. They sing “Nobody Does It Like Me” by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields from the 1973 musical Seesaw. They end up leaving happily in each other’s arms. 

            Carol and Alan play Selma and Morton, a couple that has just been on a date and Morton walks her to her door. He says some beautiful words about not being good with words. He quotes a poem: “The night was made of promises of evenings yet to be, of times to come when quiet bliss will envelop you and me”. They kiss and he asks to come in but she says it’s late. She invites him to come for dinner tomorrow night. He walks away whistling and enters her home in bliss. She turns on the TV and there is an old movie playing in which the lead actor Reginald (played by Harvey) says to the leading lady Pamela (played by Vicki) the exact same words that Morton just said and even walks away whistling the same tune. She realizes Morton was just copying that movie so she watches to find out what he’s going to do when he comes for dinner. In the movie, after dinner Reginald kisses Pamela and she says she finally knows how it feels to be a real woman and then leads him to the bedroom. We see fireworks as a metaphor for what goes on inside. The next night Selma plays along and recites all of Pamela’s responses to Reginald’s lines. She leads him to the bedroom door and then reveals that she knows what he’s been doing is from “The Strange Loves of Pamela Hotchkins”. She tells him to leave and to never darken her door again. He asks if he can explain and she says as long as it’s not a cliché. he says he was an only child and his overly protective mother wouldn’t let him play with the other kids. His only solace was the movies. In the darkness of theatres he lived vicariously the life his mother sheltered him from. Since he didn’t know how to talk to people he would quote his movie heroes. They may have been someone else’s words but they really expressed his true feelings. Selma and Morton make love while the same fireworks go off. Later he leaves and she is ecstatic about this relationship until she turns on the TV and sees Harvey in another movie giving the exact same explanation for quoting movies that Morton gave Selma before they made love. She is livid and then there’s a knock on the door because Morton forgot his ties. She shouts, “You fink!” He asks, “It was on tonight?” She wants to know why he couldn’t just be himself? He answers because he’s boring. He sits down and talks about the brakes on his car and how he took it to Ralph’s Garage, which is owned by a guy named Arnie and he asked Arnie why he has a place called “Ralph’s” when his name is Arnie and he said he didn’t know. Selma tells Morton that he really is boring. He admits that he was also imitating movie stars when he kissed her because he doesn’t know how. She invites him to kiss her as himself. He does it and misses her lips while knocking out her false eyelash. He’s about to leave but she says for him not to go and to kiss her as Robert Redford. She says, “Tomorrow night you can be Paul Newman and I’ll be Robert Redford”. So they kiss.

            Carol and Alan chat and she asks how he likes living in California since he’s been a New Yorker his whole life. He says he doesn’t live in California and commutes from New York where his wife and children live. He also prefers the east because there are four seasons. They sing “Take Me Back to Manhattan” by Cole Porter from the 1934 musical Anything Goes. They go on a tour of New York and sing “New York New York” by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green from the 1949 musical On the Town. They sing “42nd Street” by Harry Warren and Al Dubin from the 1933 musical of the same name. Harvey picks Alan’s pocket and sings “The Streets of New York” by Victor Herbert and Henry Blossom from the 1906 musical The Red Mill. Vickie plays a sex worker and sings the 1919 song “Rose of Washington Square” by James F. Hanley and Ballard McDonald. Harvey plays a drunk who accosts Carol and Alda and sings “How About You?” by Burton Lane and Arthur Freed from the 1941 film Babes On Broadway. Then he collapses on the street and Carol sings “Sleep tight baby” from the song “Lullaby of Broadway” by Harry Warren and Al Dubin from the 1935 film Gold Diggers of 1935. Vicki plays a traffic cop and sings the 1935 song “Broadway Rhythm” by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, as the dancers begin a number. Carol and Alan sing “Broadway Melody” by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. 

            Alan Alda made his stage debut at the age of 6 months and spent much of his childhood touring with his famous actor father Robert Alda. He inadvertently learned to improvise starting at the age of 6 in order to react safely to his schizophrenic and sometimes violent mother. He earned a BA in 1956. He then joined The Compass Players improv group in Chicago, followed by Second City. He made his TV debut in 1958 on The Phil Silvers Show. In 1958 he won a three year Ford Foundation Fellowship , making him a paid staff member of the Cleveland Playhouse. He made his Broadway debut in 1961 in Purlie Victorious. He made his film debut in Gone Are the Days (the movie adaptation of Purlie Victorious) in 1963. He became part of the cast of “That Was the Week That Was” from 1963 to 1965. He starred in To Kill a Clown, Sweet Liberty (which he also wrote and directed), Paper Lion, The Mephisto Waltz, A New Life, Same Time Next Year, California Suite, Everyone Says I Love You, He starred in M.A.S.H. for 11 years and won two Emmy Awards for the role. He commuted from New Jersey to LA every weekend for the entire run of the series. He wrote or co-wrote 19 episodes and starting with the 5th season also sometimes directed, gaining more and more creative influence over the show’s direction. During the 9th season he was the highest paid actor on television and became a producer. He co-starred in the series The West Wing (for which he won an Emmy), And the Band Played On (Emmy nominated), Horace and Pete, He co-starred in Bridge of Spies, The Extraordinary Seaman, Jenny, The Moonshine War, Whispers in the Dark, Mad City, The Object of MY Affection, Nothing But the Truth, The Longest Ride, Crimes and Misdemeanours, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Canadian Bacon, Murder at 1600, Flirting with Disaster, Tower Heist, He was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in The Aviator. He’s been nominated for three Tony Awards: for The Apple Tree, Jake’s Women, and Glengarry Glen Ross. He was nominated for a Grammy in 2008 for his spoken word album Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself. He wrote and starred in The Seduction of Joe Tynan, He directed and co-starred in The Four Seasons, Sweet Liberty, A New Life, and Betsy’s Wedding. He hosted Scientific American Frontiers for 12 years. He wroteNever Have Your Dog Stuffed and If I Understood You Would I Have This Look On My Face? He thought his father was a better actor. Richard Hooker, the author of the novel M.A.S.H. didn’t like Alda’s portrayal of Hawkeye.

June 7, 1996: I performed at Spit Fridays in the Cameron

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday evening after work I performed on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron, hosted by the Leslie Spit Treeo.

Jenna McMahon

            On Friday morning I worked out the chords for the intro and the first line of “L'anguille (The Eel)” by Boris Vian. The only chord that seems to fit for the end of the line is strumming the guitar with the strings open. I was trying to figure out what to name it and did a web search. I found that it’s technically E minor 11 but it depends on what chord it follows. In this case it comes after F7 but I’ll just call it Em11 anyway. 

            I compared the set of lyrics I already had for “Les anthropophages” (The Cannibals) by Serge Gainsbourg with the lyrics provided on the Dalida YouTube channel. I went through the first two verses and the chorus and it looks like the Dalida text makes more sense so far. I’ll finish that tomorrow and then start memorizing the song. 

            I weighed 89 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since May 23.

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

            Around midday I finished applying the first coat of “blue bliss” to my future bathroom mirror frame. On Sunday I’ll start the second and hopefully final coat of blue. 

            I weighed 90.45 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 89.75 kilos at 17:55. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:32. 

            I finished digitizing side 2 of the cassette tape that I started yesterday of a recording session at Mike’s place. There was an additional take of “Megaphor” but the only different song was my “Next State of Grace”. 

            In Movie Maker I imported season 7, episode 9 of The Carol Burnett Show. I isolated and published the song “Born to Hand Jive” written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey for the 1971 musical Grease, and performed on The Carol Burnett Show by Vicki Lawrence and Carlton Johnson. This was long before the film version and Vicki and Carlton actually did it better. I’m going to try to upload the video to YouTube and hopefully there won’t be any copyright problems. 

            I heated some oven fries, and had them with gravy along with two chicken drumsticks while watching season 8, episode 12 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup someone asks if Carol Burnett is her real name. She says it’s really Ben Gazarra. 

            Someone asks Carol what’s her favourite perfume. She says she wears a cologne named Rive Gauche by Yves St Laurent and she combines it with Raid. 

            A girl asks if she had a crush on Jerry Hall at UCLA and Carol says they used to go steady at Hollywood High School. The girl says she’s Jerry’s daughter. Carol says, “You could have been mine!” and then she goes into the audience to give her a hug and a kiss. 

            Ken Berry does a song and dance with the Ernie Flatt Dancers in turn of the 20th century costume. He’s telling the losers in the barber shop how to win a woman and sings “Razzle Dazzle” by Fred Ebb and John Kander from the 1975 musical Chicago. 

            There’s a parody of the disaster movie Airport 1975. Carol plays a flight attendant named Nancy. The passengers include two singing nuns known as the Smothers Sisters (played by Bonnie Evans and Vicki Lawrence) and silent screen star Nora Desmond who remembers being a star but can barely remember her own name (Carol’s parody of Gloria Swanson). A small plane crashes into the cockpit and the pilot and co-pilot are sucked out of the plane. Harvey says he’s going to blow up the plane and says he knows bombs because he used to run Friday Night on ABC. Nancy tells him he’s in the wrong movie so he apologizes and sits down. Nancy’s boyfriend Murdoch (Carl Reiner) calls her and is more concerned with their recent fight than the disaster. Murdoch reaches the plane by trampoline and successfully lands it. 

            Vicki sings “I Gotta Be Me” (by Walter Marks from the 1968 musical Golden Rainbow) while removing her eyelashes, nails, wig, false breasts, and teeth. 

            Harvey and Carol play poor expectant parents with Carol looking very pregnant and Harvey singing a parody of Paul Anka’s “You’re Having My Baby” until Carol punches him in the face and sends him through the wall. 

            Harvey and Carol play a married couple having a passive aggressive argument. She gives him the cold shoulder and when he asks what’s wrong she keeps saying “Nothing!” Then after a while he does the same to her. They finally come together and think they’ve worked out their problem but what the problem was is never mentioned. When he asks what they were fighting about she returns to “Nothing!” 

            There’s a musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet with Ken as Hamlet, Carl Reiner as the ghost of Hamlet’s father. The palace guard are all scantily clad females and they sing “Something stinks in the state of Denmark, Something’s rotten to the core, Something stinks to the heavens, It may be Maurice Evans” (a reference to his famous turn as Hamlet). The ghost of Hamlet’s father comes out and all the girls gather round him, sitting on his lap and he sings about how happy he is to be dead because he never had it so good. Harvey plays King Claudius and Vicki plays Queen Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother. She finds Hamlet brooding and sings, “Don’t you love your mama anymore?” He sings how of course he still loves her, and they dance. He sits and plays the harpsichord. Ophelia approaches him (played by Carol). She wants romance but he wants revenge. She sings a torch song about the situation. She falls into the harpsichord and he says, “Get thee to a nunnery” and rolls the harpsichord away. Hamlet talks to his father but the ghost is busy chasing the palace guards around. Claudius tells him to take his father’s advice and give Ophelia a tumble in the hey nonny nonny. Hamlet confesses he doesn’t know how. Claudius is shocked and sings, “There’s No One Who Can Do It Like a Dane” in a kind of Noel Coward type song. Hamlet is convinced and calls for Ophelia. He sings he’s ready for her and she sings “I Never Had it So Good”. Everybody sings “All is well in the state of Denmark. Nothing is rotten anymore”. 

            One of the writers on the Carol Burnett Show for 120 episodes was Jenna McMahon. She opened a playhouse in West Hollywood and was teaching acting when she met her writing partner Dick Clair. They formed a comedy act and performed on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Merv Griffin Show. They wrote for The Bob Newhart Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Soap (for which they were nominated for Emmy Awards). She co-created the sitcoms It’s a Living, The Facts of Life, and Mama’s Family. They co-wrote and co-produced the TV special Carol, Carl, Whoopi, and Robin. She produced the short-lived sitcom Julie, starring Julie Andrews.