Dionne Warwick

            On Tuesday morning I worked out the chords for half of the first verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished gathering images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll start importing them to Movie Maker.

            I weighed 87.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the first of two sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. 

            Around midday I rode up to Yonge and St. Clair to get a haircut at Top Cuts. When I left I no longer had mad scientist’s hair. 

            I weighed 87.15 kilos at 16:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since December 16. 

            I took a siesta from 16:30 to 18:00. 

            I weighed 87.8 kilos at 18:20. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:20. 

            I reviewed the recording I made with my cassette-to-MP3 converter of the cassette tape that’s been failing to be digitized for the last three weeks. A very short part of the beginning of side 1 and 13 minutes of side 2 came through clean, albeit with the occasional skipping that happens with that device. I would like to try recording the tape by simply playing it with a microphone against a speaker but I didn’t have time tonight and so I decided to run it through the cassette-to-MP3 converter one more time to see if it comes through any differently. I started the converter recording but after over an hour I noticed I’d forgotten that last night I’d removed the tape from the machine. I started again. 

            I had a lettuce, cucumber, mushroom, tomato, and avocado salad with pomegranate zaatar dressing while watching season 1, episode 19 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warm-up a 12 year old boy tells Carol he’s admired her for many years and wonders if she’ll have dinner with him. Carol says she can’t have dinner with him but invites him to come back stage after the show to share a Mars bar. She brings Jonathan Winters out and he does various impressions: A slot machine, a rod and reel, Jimmy Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, and Walter Brennan. 

            The first skit is of a married couple played by Carol and Jonathan who watch 16 hours of television a day right up until sign-off. In those days TV stations didn’t broadcast all night. After it’s shut off he suggests that maybe they watch too much TV. She asks, “What are you? Some kind of subversive? They argue. Finally Carol asks, “Can’t we ever change?” He says, “I’d rather fight than switch!” which is a phrase from an old cigarette commercial. She says, “I’m leaving you!” She goes out the door but returns and says, “I came back” He says, “and I’m glad she did!” I think this is from a Camel cigarettes commercial. She runs to him and asks about his shaving lotion. He says it’s called “Hai Karate” She says, “Take it off, take it all off”. She gets very aggressive and he starts fighting her off with karate like in the old Hai Karate commercials. He knocks her dead or unconscious, then he holds up her wristwatch to show to the camera and says, “After a terrific beating, it’s still ticking”, like in the Timex commercials. 

            Dionne Warwick sings “Theme from Valley of the Dolls” by André and Dory Previn. Then accompanied by the dancers she sings “Children Go Where I Send Thee”. Then Carol and Dionne sing “T’morra’ T’morra’” from the musical Bloomer Girl by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg. 

            Next is Carol’s biographical sketch. Chrissie comes home from a costume party wearing a space suit with a bubble helmet. Carol is wearing a new hairpiece and has to go to Roger’s niece’s wedding the next morning. She doesn’t want to mess up her hair in bed and so she plans to stay up all night. Roger wants to go to bed but makes the sacrifice to stay up with her. She starts dozing off and he has to keep waking her. He tries to prop her up with couch pillows so she can sleep while sitting but that doesn’t work. Finally he puts the space helmet on her and it looks like she’ll be able to sleep. So now she wants to take it off so she can get ready for bed and then put it back on. But it won’t come off. Roger goes to the kitchen to get a tool but while he’s there Carol gets it off. She walks toward the kitchen to tell Roger, when the kitchen door hits her and knocks her into a wall sending her hair into disarray. 

            Next is a short gangster sketch. The boss tells Willie he has to be rubbed out. He gives him the kiss of death. Willie says to the fourth wall, “He kissed me once but will he kiss me again?” like in the commercial for Smart Mouth Oral Rinse. 

            Next Carol sings “Come Rain or Come Shine” while it is at first raining on her. But then large amounts of water are thrown sat her from both sides. 

            Then there is the Wonderful World of hospitals. Walter Crankcase interviews Dr. Arnold Sparks, the head of the Richard Chamberlain Hospital (Richard Chamberlain played Dr. Kildare). They are working on a cure for Ben Gazarra. I guess that’s a reference to Run for Your Life, which starred Gazzara as someone with a terminal illness. 

            Next a surgeon and a nurse have just performed a successful operation. The doctor’s been working with Margaret for a long time and now confesses he loves her and wants to marry her. He’s fallen for her eyes but has never seen her without a surgical mask. They take off their masks and he takes one look at her and says, “Forget it!” 

            Crankcase interviews Maudie Frickert who has just given birth at the age of 83. She gave birth an hour ago and that’s when she found out she was pregnant. 

            The dancers do a sort of flamenco dance and the men are cracking whips while dancing. . Carol comes out dressed in a Spanish style costume and sings “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me”. A man with a whip starts hitting her clothes until she’s standing in her underwear and starts cracking up with laughter. 

            Dionne Warwick began singing in church at the age of 6. As a teenager she formed The Gospelaires with Dee Dee Warwick and Cissy Houston. They were in demand as backup singers during recording sessions while Dionne was still in high school. She recorded “Make it Easy On Yourself” in 1962 but then she found out they were going to release Jerry Butler’s version as the first single. She was pissed off and to appease her they offered to get Burt Bacharach and Hal David to write a song just for her. She responded by saying, “Don’t make me over!” Inspired by that phrase, Hal David wrote the lyrics for “Don’t Make Me Over” which became her first hit. She did a tour of France in 1962 and was called “The Black Pearl of Paris”. When she played the Olympia she was introduced by Marlene Dietrich. “Anyone Who Had a Heart” was her first top 10 hit. “Walk On By” made her a star. “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” was another international hit and she won a Grammy. She was the best selling female vocalist of 1964. In 1967 “I Say a Little Prayer” was her first gold record. I’ll Never Fall in Love Again made it to #6. She had her first TV special in 1969. She formed her own record company in 1970. In 1972 Bacharach and David split up and broke their contract with Warwick. She sued them and got $5 million plus the rights to all of her songs written by them. She’s had 18 top 20 hits, including 12 by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. She won 6 Grammy Awards. She hosted Solid Gold in the 1981 and 1985 seasons. She was part of the “We Are the World” collaboration. In 1985 she reunited with Bacharach to sing “That’s What Friends Are For”. She began her career as a mezzo soprano but after years of smoking became a contralto. She co-starred in Slaves, She did infomercials for the Psychic Friends Network in the 1990s.