I weighed 90.15 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune through almost all the last half of my session. Before that it went out of tune for almost every song.
A truck went by from a company called Live Bait Incorporated. They must have an interesting warehouse.
Around midday I painted with the “crazy in love” pink hue the first coat for two of the four floral reliefs on the frame of my future bathroom mirror. I might have the first coat for the rest done on Tuesday.
I weighed 90.65 kilos before lunch. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.
I weighed 90.35 kilos at 17:40.
I was caught up in my journal at 19:36.
I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of early recordings of “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” at Mike’s Place with Mike on drums. I keep expecting a channel to drop out but everything’s fine now that I have all new cables. The next tape I’ll digitize is also of “Instructions…” I have more tapes of that song than any other.
I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, three sliced Oktoberfest sausages and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 9, episode 18 of The Carol Burnett Show.
During the audience warmup someone asks when Carol’s book will be out. She says it’s out now. “Can you just pick it up anywhere?” “I’d rather you buy it”.
Carol sings a song I assume was written by one of her writers about how, “Anybody named Jackson has got to wind up on top”. She lists several famous people named Jackson and then finally The Jackson 5. Then they come out and sing it with her before doing their own number, “Forever Came Today”. I could tell the songwriters without looking it up because it had the stamp of Holland, Dozier, and Holland, who wrote most of the songs for The Supremes and this song was a hit for them in 1967. Michael Jackson was developing more and more finesse. One could see it in how he spun around and grabbed the mic.
Harvey plays a politician about to meet the US president to receive a cabinet post. Tim is his right hand and he comes to Harvey to tell him the president is ready for him. Harvey’s wife has been sitting quietly and now Harvey tells her it’s time to meet the president. Tim says he told the president he would be coming without his wife. Harvey insists he go back and tell the president that his wife would be coming as well if Tim wants to be appointed the undersecretary.. We learn that Carol has just recovered from a severe head injury sustained by sticking her head out of a train window and hitting a telephone pole. She swings from a chandelier when Harvey isn’t looking. Tim comes back with some papers for Harvey to review. When Harvey turns his back Carol is all over Tim, first seductively and then bopping him on the head. When Harvey turns his back again Carol runs, jumps and wraps her legs around Tim as she kisses him and he struggles to get free. Tim asks Harvey to reconsider taking his wife. Harvey says if he asks that again he’s fired. When Harvey’s back is turned again Carol pours water all over Tim. This keeps happening until now she’s drawn a Hitler moustache on Tim and pulled his pants down. Harvey fires Tim and then wonders with whom to replace him. Carol says, “How about Bob Thomson?” Bob Thomson turns out to be the hat rack in Harvey’s office and they take it to meet the president.
The Jackson 5 pretend to teach Vicki how to dance and sing the 1974 song “Body Language” by Hal Davis and Don Fletcher.
They do a parody of the 1946 film A Stolen Life starring Bette Davis as identical twins with opposite personalities. Carol plays the Bette Davis roles. We first meet the shy and reserved Patsy who is obsessed with the lighthouse she can see from her window. Then she meets Bill the lighthouse keeper played by Harvey and they have a lot in common. They fall for each other but then he meets Patsy’s outgoing and glamourous sister Vera. By the time Patsy returns to the room they have run off together. Months later Vera and Bill are married and living in New York where Bill is a big success. Vera returns for a visit and she and Patsy go sailing. Vera drowns and Patsy assumes her identity so she can be with Bill. She has to deal with the fact that every man she meets is Vera’s lover. She learns that Bill wants to divorce her so she reveals herself to him and he says he is now free to be with the one he truly loves, which is his maid Docina. So Patsy lets all of Vera’s lovers fawn over her as consolation.
The final sketch is an almost exact remake of one from season 4, episode 8.
Carol’s Charwoman is at a circus. She meets a clown who gives her a dead rose. He tries to juggle while balancing a feather on his nose but he can’t juggle and the feather is glued to his nose. He sweeps the spotlight into a small circle, picks it up and hands it to her. She puts it in her pocket. She sings “It’s Only a Paper Moon” by Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg and Billy Rose from 1933. Then she sings “Look for the Silver Lining” by Jerome Kern and B.G. De Sylva from 1919. At the end she thanks “the world’s greatest clown”, Emmett Kelly. I would think if he was really the world’s greatest clown he would have come up with another routine in five years.
Emmett Kelly wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist but couldn’t get work in that field so he became a chalk-talk artist. He would tell stories and illustrate them in chalk. He then became a trapeze artist. His first appearance as a clown was with Howe’s Great London Circus in 1921 in Iowa. The sad faced clown persona he played on the Carol Burnett Show was named Weary Willy and he was based on the many hoboes that that were a common sight during the Depression. A “weary willy” was another name for a hobo. He performed as a cartoonist dressed as a clown in night clubs. His nightclub act attracted the attention of several circuses and he eventually joined Coles Brothers Circus. He helped to rescue several children after a circus tent caught fire. He had a nightclub act in the 1930s with Linn Sheldon. He made his Broadway debut in Keep Off the Grass in 1940. In 1942 he joined Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey where he did an act called Panto’s Paradise in which he played a hobo clown in Fairyland. He made his film debut in The Fat Man in 1951. His 1954 memoir is called Clown. In 1956 he was the first guest on What’s My Line? In 1958 he co-starred in Wind Across the Everglades. In 1959 he was hired by Pacific Ocean Amusement Park for 19 weeks as vice president in charge of fun. He was a regular for 15 years at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe. He became known to millions when he started performing on TV. He was in Bette Midler’s first TV special and she sang John Prine’s song “Hello In There” to his Weary Willy character.
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