The Collins Kids

            On Monday I was back to my usual routine. It’s nice to break it up every now and then and yet there’s comfort to be found as well in regulated activities.

I finished working out the chords to Serge Gainsbourg’s “Pour un Homme” and posted it on my translation blog.

I got caught up on my journal.

My hip muscles were still bothering me. I had to renew my books from the OISE Library. I have to renew them every two weeks but I can renew them three times online before I have to bring them in and take them out again. I had lost count how many times I’d renewed them and so I was dreading the possibility of having to ride downtown and agitate the muscle strain. I was relieved that they I was able to renew them online until June 10.

I finished editing the video of me playing and singing “L’alcool” by Serge Gainbourg and then uploaded it to YouTube.

I weighed 90.3 kilos in the late afternoon.

I was feeling kind of tired even though I’d taken a siesta. A bike ride would have perked me up but I couldn’t risk it.

For dinner I cooked a potato, some broccoli, heated two chicken drumsticks and some gravy and watched The Steve Allen Show from December 23, 1956.

Most of the songs and skits were more sentimental than interesting. The show starts with Santa Clause going “ho ho ho” and then the camera scrolls down to reveal Steve Allen tickling his feet with a feather. The opening act was really the best thing on the show. The Collins Kids performed Rock Around the Clock and In My Teens. Larry Collins, who was 12 at the time, was a virtuoso guitarist. Lorrie, who was 14 at the time of this performance, two years later began dating Ricky Nelson and when she was seventeen she married Johnny Cash’s manager. Larry became a successful songwriter, with his most famous song being Delta Dawn. Lorrie died after a fall last year. The other main performer was singer and comedic actor Martha Raye, who did a couple of mostly silent skits with a lot of movement and facial expressions. There were also two Christmas songs by the Vienna Boys choir, which was formed six years after Columbus stumbled on America. Steve interviewed Norman Vincent Peale. Nobody on the show could top the Collins Kids.