I wasn’t quite able to memorize the fourth verse of “Dessous mon pull” (Under My Sweater) by Serge Gainsbourg but I should have it nailed down tomorrow.
I weighed 88.3 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the second of four sessions and it went out of tune during every song.
At 13:00 I went downstairs to meet my upstairs neighbour David because we were scheduled to go to lunch. After five minutes I called him but there was no answer. I went back up to my place and called him again and this time he answered. He asked me to come up to his place for lunch and so I did. All he has for furniture are folding chairs. he sat me down in a very uncomfortable high folding chair. He stir fried some stewing beef with cherry tomatoes and Ethiopian spices and served it to me on a plate with two slices of dry bread. I asked if I could sit on a lower folding chair. The meat was tough and hard to swallow. He gave me a bottle of water that tasted flat. There were no utensils and so I had to eat with my hands. I found out he has bedbugs. He says his girlfriend pointed them out. He’s had bedbugs ever since I’ve known him so I don’t know why he was surprised.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.
I weighed 89.5 kilos at 18:00, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since March 14.
I worked on getting caught up in my journal but was still behind at suppertime.
I baked a salmon fillet and had it with a potato and gravy while watching season 3, episode 11 of The Carol Burnett Show.
During the audience warmup Carol brings out her special guests Garry Moore and Durward Kirby. Someone asks when they started working together. Garry says Carol first guested on his daytime show in 1956. He adds that he and Durward have been together off and on since 1940. Carol says she became a regular on Garry’s show in October of 1959.
The first skit features Carol and Harvey as The Old Folks. They are sitting in their back yard on New Years Eve and so obviously it’s California. Molly says she’s thinking of turning on Guy Lombardo. Harvey says he doesn’t think that’s possible. They sing “Do You Love Me?” by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick from Fiddler on the Roof.
The second skit is a British courtroom drama featuring the trial of Mrs. Peter Piper. Mrs. Piper is played by Carol. Gary is the prosecutor and Durward the defender. Mrs. Piper is on trial for murdering her husband. The lawyers keep trading off to ask Mrs. Piper questions as she’s the only witness. In one round the defender just establishes Mrs. Piper’s name before saying “Your witness”. She says her husband was in the business of picking pecks of pickled peppers. The prosecutor accuses her of pecking in Picadilly Park with Paul Peters the porker and when Peter threatened to plug her she popped him on the pate with a poker. He says her true identity is Cecily Susan Sussman of Sussex and she sells seashells by the sea shore. She tells the story of killing her husband and his lover all in “S” alliteration in a British accent. The prosecutor asks the court stenographer to read back what she said. The court stenographer is Jim Nabors who says, “Gollay!” and proceeds to repeat it in his Gomer Pyle accent.
Carol recites a poem she wrote when she was 12:
I wish I was a Christmas star
perched atop a tree
Folks would see me from afar
because of how bright I’d be
I’d shine all night I’d shine all day
A lovely sight to see
folks would look at me and say
We should have got a bell
Carol sings “Make Your Own Kind of Music” by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, which was a hit for Mama Cass in 1969.
Gary and Durward are co-hosts of a children’s show. They tell the kids to get close to their TVs and not to worry about the radiation because nobody lives forever (The cathode ray tubes of that era emitted low level X-rays but the fear of harm was unfounded). They encourage children to hold their breath until they turn blue to force their parents to buy the toys they are advertising. There is an Ed Sullivan doll that does everything the real Ed Sullivan does, which is nothing.
Harvey Korman does an impersonation of Tom Jones singing “It’s Not Unusual” by Les Reed and Gordon Mills.
Next there is one of Carol’s autobiographical sketches. Carol has a bad cold but still Roger has poker night at their place. She complains that every time his friends come over it takes her a week to clean up after them. Despite Roger telling her she could go to bed, after they come she has to wait on them the whole time. Carol gets knocked out by the kitchen door.
In a parody of To Tell the Truth three women claim to be Elizabeth Taylor. When the real one stands up, the host steals her diamonds.
Garry recites “A Christmas Wish” by Henry Van Dyke. It’s actually a segment of his larger poem “Keeping Christmas”.
Then the Bob Mitchell Boys Choir sings “Sleighride” by Leroy Anderson and Mitchell Parish from 1947. One of the boys in the choir has a black eye. Carol notices this and has been calling him “Shiner” all week. She asks his name and it’s Ronnie Stewart. She wants to know how he got the black eye and he explains that he got into a fight with another boy in the choir named Mike. They fought because Ronnie was in a folding bed and Mike folded it while he was in it. She has them shake hands and make up. She says the choir appeared in the movie Going My Way.
Carol, Vicki and the choir sing “Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?” by John Barry and Hal David. It first appeared in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and it’s the only Christmas song to ever be sung in a James Bond film. It was sung by Danish singer Nina van Palandt. Everybody sings “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”.
Durward Kirby began studying Engineering at Perdue University but dropped out to become a radio announcer. He co-hosted the radio show Club Matinee in Chicago with Garry Moore. He acted in summer stock theatre. He was the announcer for the short film Musical Shipmates in 1946. He was the host of General Electric Guest House in 1951. He was the sidekick of Garry Moore for the long running Garry Moore Show. In 1961 he threatened to sue Rocky and Bullwinkle over the character on the Bullwinkle Show who was named Kirwood Derby. He co-hosted Candid Camera from 1961 to 1966. He wrote three books: My Life, Bits and Pieces of This and That, and a children’s book called Dooley Wilson.
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