Lucille Ball

            On Monday morning I memorized the second verse of “Poupée Poupée” (Dolly Dolly) by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I weighed 88.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            I'd been putting off doing my laundry and I've just hand washed my underwear for the last week until my exam was over. Today I finally took my stuff to the coin laundry. There weren't many people there but I had to dry my stuff in the back room because the couple who manage the place were cleaning the filters and vacuuming. I weighed 87.1 kilos before lunch. 

            Since I'd already been out riding my bike back and forth to the laundrymat I decided not to take an afternoon bike ride.

            I got caught up on my journal at 17:30. 

            I inserted the razor-sharpening scene from “Un Chien Andalou” into the video I'm making for my song “Instructions For Electroshock Therapy” at the point in the studio audio when I'm singing, “Now take a razor and shave the hair.” Then I cut a bit off the end of that and some from the concert video so that the concert video is in sync with me singing “around the temples.” But it goes out of sync again when I sing “then rub electrode jelly there.” So I pulled the real footage of electroshock therapy from the 1940s to the end of the timeline and edited everything out but the part where they apply electrode jelly to the patient's temples. Tomorrow I'll insert that clip into the video. 

            I weighed 86.9 kilos at 18:30. 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood In A Bug.” 

            I found that my mark has been posted for my US Lit essay and I was very disappointed to see that I only got 70%. That's the lowest mark I've ever gotten on an English term paper. I don't think it's fair but I haven't decided yet if I'm going to appeal the mark with Professor Morgenstern. Since the professor is on a first-name basis with the TA it might be futile to try. Maybe I'll wait for my grade for the whole course first. I decided to go ahead and ask my professor to review the essay. The worst that could happen is I'd get a lower mark but that's never happened. It usually either gets upped a bit or it stays the same. 

            I grilled a pack of sirloin tip steaks and had two with a potato and gravy while watching the 1966 TV special “Lucy In London.” 

            This special was sort of a side trip of Lucille Ball's “The Lucy Show” in which she played a bank teller named Lucy Carmichael. That character arrives in London for a one-day tour after winning it in a raffle. She is greeted at the airport by Tony her tour guide but she is somewhat disappointed that her vehicle for the tour is a motorcycle with a sidecar. Tony convinces her that this is the best way to see London. He first takes her to the River Thames, then inflates a raft so they can go punting. But while they are out there they get into the path of a rowing race and the raft sinks. Tony takes Lucy to the fashion district where Lucy is involved in a musical number written by Phil Spector and she is shown posing in various mod fashions. Tony takes her to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum where she falls behind the tour and while she is touching one of the figures she thinks it has come to life but it's really the curator of the museum who takes her to the chamber of horrors. Thinking she is going to be tortured she hits him over the head and runs away. Tony takes Lucy to a garden where Shakespeare performances are given and she ends up playing Kate in a scene from The Taming of the Shrew. But she finds Petruchio is a little too enthusiastic with his whip as he attempts to tame her and she runs away. On London Bridge Lucy and Tony sing “London Bridge is Falling Down” while the members of The Dave Clark Five, dressed in top hats and tails, sing “Pop Goes the Weasel” in counterpoint. Tony finally takes Lucy to a theatre where he puts on a show for her. Tony is played by Anthony Newley who co-wrote the song “Feeling Good.” He performs songs from his show “Stop The World I Want To Get Off.” It had its moments of charm but generally, it was kind of lame. It was the most-watched TV show of that week but critics didn't like it. Lucy had planned on doing three travel specials but decided to only do this one. 

            Lucille Ball performed for the first time in a chorus line when she was 12. When at 14 she started dating a hoodlum her mother, to change her focus, got her enrolled in a drama school. But she was told there that she had no talent. She did some modelling, became the Chesterfield Cigarette Girl, worked for Ziegfeld Follies and then went out to Hollywood. Two of her first films were “Three Little Pigskins” starring the Three Stooges, and the Marx Brothers film “Room Service.” In 1940 she starred in the musical “Too Many Girls” where she met Desi Arnaz. She signed with MGM and became known as Queen of the Bs for movies like “Five Came Back.” In 1948 she was the star of the radio series “My Favourite Husband.” In 1950 when they decided to make it into a TV show Lucy insisted that her real life husband Desi Arnaz be her co-star. CBS didn't think a Latin actor would be accepted on TV but after Lucy and Desi took their show on the road and it became a Vaudeville hit CBS signed them to do “I Love Lucy.” It was the top show for pretty much its entire run. Even before this Lucy and Desi had formed the production company Desilu. After their divorce in 1960, Lucy bought out Desi's half. In addition to Lucy's own projects, Desilu was the company behind The Untouchables, Mission Impossible, and Star Trek.