Ed Simmons

            On Friday morning I worked out the chords for the last line of the third verse and all of the fourth verse of “L'anguille (The Eel)” by Boris Vian. 

            I translated the last verse of “Les anthropophages” (The Cannibals) by Serge Gainsbourg. I searched for the chords but no one has posted them. I established the key and so tomorrow I’ll start working out the chords. 

            I weighed 90.35 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it went out of tune about every other song. 

            Around midday I finished the final coat of “blue bliss” hued paint on my future bathroom mirror frame. On Sunday I’ll start painting the bathroom lazy Susan the shade of pink called “crazy in love”. When that’s finished I’ll return to the mirror frame and paint the four floral reliefs that same shade of pink. 

            I weighed 91.35 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the early afternoon since May 27.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back to buy the pack of Sponge Towels that I forgot to buy yesterday when I was there. 

            I weighed 90.95 kilos at 18:00.

            I was finally caught up in my journal for the first time in days at 20:24. 

            I worked on digitally enhancing an old photograph. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast pork while watching season 8, episode 21 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warm-up someone from Canada asks if she’s ever been there. Carol says she never has because she’s too young for anyone to take her over the border. A guy says if she likes bald men he’d take her over the border. She says she hears bald men are virile. 

            In the Mama’s Family sketch Roddy McDowell returns as Eunice’s brother Phil. He’s now a successful, Oscar winning Hollywood writer and Eunice, Ed and Mama have driven out to California to visit him. The only star Mama wants to meet is Lawrence Welk. Eunice keeps hinting that she wants Phil to get her into the movies. She says she admires that Francis Ford Coppola put his sister Talia Shire in The Godfather. Phil has written a screenplay about the love affair between Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex. Eunice starts reading it in her southern US accent. She says her teacher always said she had good expressions. Ed tells Phil he should put some Three Stooges type schtick into his screenplay to liven things up. Eunice starts singing “Memories”. Mama tells her to get off Phil’s back and stop hinting that he should put a no talent like her in his movie and flush his career down the toilet. Philip says he doesn’t know much about acting because he’s a writer. Eunice says, “We know you’re a writer! That’s all you ever talk about and you throw it in our faces all the time with your writing statues! You’d come home from school and read a couple of poems you wrote in English class that nobody could make head nor tail out of and daddy’d go out and buy you two Eskimo Pies!” But if she came home from Expression class and shared some of her expressions the room would clear like rats from a sinking ship. Ed starts to say he’d like to hear some of her expressions but she tells him to shut up. She says he’s the reason she’s not in her proper station in life. If she hadn’t married him she’d have had time to develop her talent so that her brother wouldn’t be ashamed to put her in his movie. Ed says he had plans too. He wanted to have a chain of hardware stores. He says it’s still not too late cause if Phil can do it anybody can. Phil says he may have to check into a hotel for a couple of weeks while they’re visiting so he can work on his screenplay. He says anything they want his houseboy will take care of it. While they are arguing Phil slips out the door like he did last time. When they realize he’s gone Eunice just says Phil never did have a sense of family and they head for the pool. 

            Bernadette Peters sings “All That Jazz” by John Kander and Fred Ebb from the 1975 musical Chicago while doing a sexy dance in a slinky outfit with the help of the Ernie Flatt dancers. 

            Carol and Bernadette play two secretaries working side by side who are totally coordinated in their typing and all their other movements as well. They also answer the phone at the same time. They have identical lunchboxes. Carol is taking her vacation the first week in July while Bernadette will be going the first week in August. They wish they could take their vacations at the same time because it would be fun doing things together for a change. 

            There is a parody of the movie The Heiress called The Lady Heir. Carol plays Catherine, a shy, klutzy, dull young woman and Harvey plays her wealthy and verbally abusive father. His sister tells him he should be warmer towards her and so he tells her she looks less hideous than usual. They receive a visit from Norris Townsley (played by Roddy). He says he finds Catherine enchanting and tells her he loves her. He admits to her father she’s a troll but says she’s clever. Her father challenges that by asking her “Why did the chicken cross the road?” She racks her brains but can’t come up with an answer. Her father gives Norris permission to marry “this doddering clod”. She runs to pack her things. Meanwhile the father tells Norris that he’s disinheriting Catherine and so Norris leaves. Later Catherine’s father tells her what he said to Norris. Catherine changes and suddenly begins to assert herself. She tells her father to shut up. He has a heart attack and dies. Three years pass and now Catherine is a sophisticated, flamboyantly dressed, confident woman. Norris returns to try to win her over again and she plays along. She suggests they elope and hands him a handbag that she says contains her entire fortune. She tells him to take it outside and wait for her. She tells her aunt that if Norris doesn’t open the bag he’ll belong to her but if he does he’ll belong to the whole neighbourhood. He does open it and it blows up. 

            They finish with a mini-musical featuring the words and music of Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock but done with French accents. Carol sings “Good Clean Fun” from the 1960 musical Tenderloin. Bernadette sings “Dear Friend” from the 1963 musical She Loves Me. Roddy arrives and sings “Matchmaker” from the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof. Bernadette sings it as well. Bernadette sings “Will He Like Me?” also from She Loves Me and so does Roddy. Then they dance to “Sunrise Sunset” from Fiddler. Carol sings “Days Gone By” from She Loves Me. Then she sings “The Very Next Man” from the 1959 musical Fiorello. Harvey sings “”If I Were a Rich Man” from Fiddler but with some French lines added, such as instead of “All day long I’d biddy biddy boom” he sings “All day long I’d je ne sais pas quoi”. Then Carol and Harvey sing “Do You Love Me?” from Fiddler followed by “She Loves Me” from She Loves Me. Then Roddy joins in with Harvey as Carol and Bernadette sing “Matchmaker” in counterpoint to “She Loves Me”. 

            The head writer for The Carol Burnett Show was Ed Simmons. He started out a partnership with Norman Lear when they wrote a monologue for Danny Thomas. Lear said that he and Simmons were new and fresh just like television and so they became “the” comedy writers for that medium. They then wrote for The Ford Star Revue, The Colgate Comedy Hour starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and The Martha Raye Show. He went on to write solo for George Gobel, Dinah Shore, Red Skelton, and Tom Jones. In the 60s he wrote for Jerry Lewis’s variety show. He created Dean Martin’s comical reputation as an alcoholic lounge singer. He won five Emmy Awards with The Carol Burnett Show. He was nominated for a total of thirteen Emmys.