I continued translating “Chaussures noires et pompes funèbres” (Black Dress Shoes and Funeral Parlours) by Gainsbourg.
I weighed 88.65 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since April 17.
I had to delay starting song practice at 10:00 because I had an 11:00 appointment with the denturist at Family Dentistry on Queen. I was sitting on the side of the chair so I could get my denture out of my backpack to show him. He said he’d look at it after I “sit properly”. He said my flexible denture can’t be adjusted. We discussed getting a denture made that would cover all my missing teeth. I agreed to go with that but then he told me that the denture would be metal because the Canadian Dental Plan doesn’t cover acrylic ones. I decided not to get the dentures and to just wait for the implant. When I looked it up later it seems he was wrong that the federal plan doesn’t cover acrylic dentures. I’m not going back to that guy. It looks like I won’t be shooting any song practice videos this summer as I’d hoped to do, not with a gap in the front of my teeth. I assume I’ll have the implant by next summer.
I did my song practice ninety minutes later than usual and was done just before lunch.
I weighed 90.04 before lunch. I had saltines with peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar with a glass of iced tea.
I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back stopped at Freshco where I bought six bags of grapes and price matched them with The Real Canadian Superstore’s cost of $3.95 a kilo.
I weighed 88.95 kilos at 18:30. That’s the easiest I’ve been on the scale in the evening since April 21.
I was caught up in my journal at 19:33.
I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of the recording of the Christian and the Lions concert at Lee’s Palace on October 6, 1995. Tom Smarda played Stratocaster, Steve Lowe played acoustic guitar, Arjan played bass, and Barzin Hosseini played drums. On side 2 there were my songs “Thin Red Line”, “Sixteen Tons of Dogma”, and “Angeline”. Tomorrow I’ll digitize side 1 of a Christian and the Lions rehearsal tape.
I deleted several images from my hard drive.
I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with cherry tomato sauce, tomato pesto, chopped hot Italian sausage and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 4, episode 22 of The Carol Burnett Show.
During the audience warmup a 13 year old girl gives Carol a Charwoman hand puppet that she made.
Someone asks about Carol’s ear-pulling gesture. She says it used to signal hello to her grandmother but now it’s for her kids. She says her left ear is slightly longer since she’s been doing it.
A boy asks Carol her favourite sport and she says Paul Newman.
The Carol and Sis sketch has Carol heating TV dinners for supper and Roger is very disappointed. He wonders what took up her time since she obviously didn’t go to the beauty parlour. Then the doorbell rings and Carol tells Roger that bell just saved his life. It’s Roger’s accountant Howard (played by Bob Newhart) and he’s come by to get their tax returns signed. He says his wife is waiting in the car and they didn’t know he was married. Roger says to bring her in and then Roger and Carol discuss what kind of a woman a nerd like Howard would get. But it turns out that Blanche is tall, blonde and gorgeous. She also waits on Howard hand and foot, makes all of his clothes, is a master chef, and is about to become a lawyer. They have to leave because their new waterbed is being delivered. After they leave, Roger absent mindedly calls Carol “Blanche” and he’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight.
Chita Rivera dances with the male members of the Ernie Flatt Dancers to a recording of Blood, Sweat, and Tears performing “Lucretia MacEvil” by David Clayton Thomas from 1970. Chita portrays Lucretia as a literal spider woman with the dance beginning high on a giant web. At the end there are several men caught in the web and others dead on the floor.
The next skit is an almost exact re-enactment of a skit from season 2, episode 25 in which
Harvey wakes up with a hangover. There’s a knock and in walks Carol as Alice Portnoy the Fireside Girl collecting money. Bit by bit she reveals information she knows about him along with photographic evidence that results in him donating more and more money to her can.
The final skits and numbers are part of their salutes to Hollywood film studios. This time it’s MGM.
Carol and Harvey re-enact the famous scene in Ninotchka in which Greta Garbo laughs on screen for the first time.
Then there is a parody of Blackboard Jungle in which Bob Newhart plays the teacher and tells the students to put their bullets to the front of the room. They open fire at him.
Carol, Vicki and Chita do the Charleston and sing a song that mimics that era. Then they sing “The Varsity Drag” by Ray Henderson, Buddy de Sylva, and Lew Brown from the 1927 musical Good News.
There’s a parody of the scene from Gone With the Wind when Rhett Butler carries Scarlet O’Hara up the stairs “to make a woman of her”. Her dress keeps getting in his face but after three tries he gets her up but then she lets him know that her bedroom is downstairs.
There is a parody of the 1936 film Rose Marie, set in a fort in the frontiers of Canada. Harvey plays a Mountie named Sergeant Strongheart, Lyle plays a French Canadian trapper. The ordered brides arrive. Carol plays Rose Marie a disguised French princess and Vicki plays her lady in waiting. Bob Newhart plays the Marquis de Fop who pursues Marie Rose. Vicki is carried off by Lyle and Strongheart comes to Rose Marie’s rescue. Chita plays a First Nations woman who intervenes by shooting an arrow at them because she’s in love with Strongheart. Fop arrives looking for Marie. She disguises herself as a Mountie. Strongheart is confused because he is attracted to this guy. But Fop recognizes her. Strongheart steps in his way and so Fop challenges him to a duel, long notes at three paces. Marie hits Strongbow with a pin in the ass to make him sing longer and he wins. Chita offers herself to Fop.
Carol reveals that her sister Chrissie stood in as one of the crowd, sang a bit, and even learned some dance steps.
Chita Rivera trained as a ballerina from age 11 and received a scholarship to the School of American Ballet. Her first professional performance was at 17 in Call Me Madam after she had accompanied a friend to the audition and ended up winning the part. She became a star after appearing as Anita in the original production of West Side Story on Broadway. She played Rosie in the original Broadway production of Bye Bye Birdie. She won a Tony for The Rink and another for Kiss of the Spider Woman (originating the part of the title character). She had six more nominations for Bye Bye Birdie, Chicago (originating the role of Velma). Bring Back Birdie, Merlin, Jerry’s Girls, and Nine the Musical. She made her TV debut on The Maurice Chevalier Show in 1956. She appeared three times on The Ed Sullivan Show. She played Connie Richardson on The New Dick Van Dyke Show. Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom and she was the first Hispanic woman to receive the Kennedy Centre Honour.
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