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.