Pearl Bailey

            On Sunday morning I memorized the second verse of L'anguille (The Eel) by Boris Vian. 

            I wasn’t quite able to memorize the fifth verse of “Il est Rigolo mon gigolo” (He’s a Giggle Oh My Gigolo) but I should have it nailed down tomorrow. 

            I weighed 88.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio for song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time. 

            Part of the way through song practice I had to have a bowel movement. The shit went down but blocked the passage somewhere out of sight and the water was climbing. I had to grab a salad bowl and scoop a lot of water into the sink to keep it from overflowing. A few days ago I lent my plunger to my upstairs neighbour David and so I had to wake him up to get it back. I plunged continuously for at least fifteen minutes and the handle wore the skin raw on a dime sized part of my palm. I had to put on my leather Range Rider gloves to keep plunging and finally the backup cleared. The last thing I needed was an overflow with the landlord already breathing down my neck. I had to finish song practice with mostly shortened songs in order to not fall too far behind on my schedule. 

            I cleaned the warm mist humidifier that’s been running this week and set the other one going. Fortunately it didn’t take long because I hadn’t used it much over the last week and so there was less crust to clear. 

            I weighed 89.75 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar with a glass of iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at the John and Richmond No Frills on the way back. I got cinnamon-raisin bread, kitchen garbage bags, and I was looking for a strawberry-rhubarb pie like they have at the Jameson and King No Frills but they didn’t have them there. I bought some apple crumble instead. 

            I weighed 89 kilos at 18:25. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:11. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity side 2 of a recording session at Mike’s place in Peter Fruchter’s garage of several takes of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” with me on vocal and guitar and Mike on drums. But my vocal came through only faintly because Audacity was only recording the left channel. There are two channels on my audio interface but usually one is enough to pick up both channels from the tapes I’ve been recording. I switched the line in to the right channel and it recorded my vocal but rather than trying to synchronize the two channels I think I need a one female to two male cable splitter so my line in divides into both channels on the interface. I’ll stop by Long and McQuade tomorrow to see if they have one. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, two sliced souvlakis, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 6, episode 7 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warm-up a lot of people want kisses from Carol and other members of the cast. 

            A boy asks Carol is she has pets and she says she has three dogs. 

            In the first skit, Max, the butler of former silent film star Nora Desmond answers the door and Howard Hastings wants to talk to Nora about doing a TV commercial. Max becomes violent because Miss Desmond would never stoop to doing a commercial. Then Nora comes down the stairs looking crazed and wearing clothes from the silent era. She asks if it’s Rudolph and Max puts his hand over Howard’s mouth and confirms that it’s Valentino. She says, “At last you’ve come to beg for my forgiveness”. She kisses him and then hits him, knocking him down and says, “It’s too late for that!” Then she thinks it’s her hairdresser and she kisses and hits him again. Finally she is told it’s about a television commercial but she doesn’t know what television is. It’s explained to her and Howard says she’ll be seen by millions. She says she’ll demand $1 million. Howard says they only have $250. Max says, “No one directs Madame but me!” Howard suggests makeup and she hits him again, this time knocking him all the way up the stairs. Howard shows Nora the script and the product is insecticide. Her leading man would be a bedbug named Billy. Howard has Billy in his briefcase and introduces him to Nora. Nora holds Billy between two fingers and maps out their future together, which ends in him falling for another woman so she crushes him. Max tells Howard that now he will be the bedbug. She accidentally stabs Howard with a sword, then Max walks into the blade. He pulls the sword out and is holding it when she accidentally walks into it and they all die. 

            Pearl Bailey sings “Where is Love?” by Lionel Bart from the 1960 musical Oliver. 

            Harvey Korman and Tim Conway play rowing slaves on a galley ship but Tim is elderly, weak, and has leprosy. Tim has spent twenty years carving a key from a cannonball and plans to escape. Harvey has done his time and will be free tomorrow and so he’s not interested in escaping. Tim is caught and thrown overboard but he’s still chained to Harvey and so Harvey is pulled over too. 

            Pearl Bailey plays a psychiatrist and Carol comes to see her. Pearl asks her to tell her problem and she will listen but Pearl never shuts up long enough to listen. Whenever she tries to talk Pearl interrupts to tell her she’s not talking. Carol finally says her problem is a man. Pearl begins to sing, the 1917 song “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Eddie Green. The more she sings the more emotional she becomes until she lies down on the couch and she and Carol switch roles. 

            Mrs. Cleavinger is accused of murder and goes to see the lawyers Huntington and Bunny. But Huntington really is a rabbit played by Tim who often stops to eat his office plants. The humour is mostly in watching Tim play that part. 

            The rest of the show is a tribute to 20th Century Fox. 

            There’s a parody of The Sound of Music with Carol playing Julie’s part. She is introduced to the children and walks down the line singing “Do-Re-Mi” by Rodgers and Hammerstein until she gets to big handsome Hans and then sings, the 1923 song “You’ve Gotta See Mama Every Night” by Con Conrad and Billy Rose. 

            They do a spoof of the first Elvis movie Love Me Tender. Tim Conway plays Elvis as he comforts his dying brother. But he makes fun of Elvis not having a very enunciative speaking voice and it sounds like he’s not saying words at all. 

            Carol does a song and dance number in which she imitates Carmen Miranda. 

            There’s a parody of the movie “Anastasia”. Young women keep coming to the empress to prove they are the real Anastasia (who was probably murdered by Bolsheviks as a child). She rejects them until Pearl comes forward and the empress is sure she is her descendant. But then she tells her she will have to do chores and Pearl walks away. 

            Carol, Vicki, and Pearl sing the 1911 song “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” by Irving Berlin. Pearl does a solo dance as well. 

            As a young woman Pearl Bailey toured Pennsylvania mining towns as a dancer. She made her stage singing debut at 15. Then she became a vaudeville singer. In 1941 she entertained the US troops with the USO. She made her Broadway debut in St Louis Woman in 1946. Her film debut was in Variety Girl in 1947. She won a Tony for her performance in the all black version of Hello Dolly. She had a top ten hit with “Takes Two to Tango” in 1952. She co-starred in The Fox and the Hound, She won an Emmy for her performance in Cindy Eller. She did 23 performances on the Ed Sullivan Show. She co-starred in Carmen Jones, Isn’t It Romantic, That Certain Feeling, St. Louis Blues, All the Fine Young Cannibals, and Norman is that You? She did commercials for Duncan Heins commercials. She was a close friend of Joan Crawford and sang at her funeral. She was appointed a Special Ambassador to the United Nations by Gerald Ford. She wrote the books The Raw Pearl, Talking to Myself, Pearl’s Kitchen, Hurry Up America and Spit, Duey’s Tale, and Between You and Me.