Nick Benedict

            On Saturday morning I memorized the first chorus of “La complainte de Bonnot” by Boris Vian. Now that I know the first two verses and the first chorus, there is just two verses and one chorus left to learn. 

            I ran through singing and playing the parody of “Que je t’aime” (That I Love You)” by Serge Gainsbourg in French and English. Then I uploaded it to my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare it for publication and I should have it done tomorrow. 

            I weighed 89.55 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it went out of tune a lot more than usual. It only fully behaved through four songs. 

            At around midday I went to Freedom Mobile to pay for my July phone plan, to Vina Pharmacy to pick up a prescription and then rode down to No Frills for groceries. I got five bags of cherries, a pack of blueberries, some bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, some mouthwash, a jar of tomato pesto, a jug of lemonade, a jug of orange juice, two containers of PC skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. I did a price match for the cherries with the Metro price. The Freshco price is cheaper but I couldn’t find it on their flyer. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos at 14:40. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            I took a siesta at 15:30 and got up at 17:00. By the time I’d brushed my teeth it was too late for a bike ride. 

            I weighed 90.35 kilos at 17:25. 

            At 18:52 I was caught up in my journal for the first time in about two weeks. 

            I returned to my project of digitizing my cassette tapes for the first time since I got all the proper cables so I can record with two channels. I recorded side one of a session of early recordings of my song “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” at Mike’s Place with Mike on drums. There’s no more frustrating dropping out of the right channel. Tomorrow I’ll do side 2. 

            I grilled five Oktoberfest sausages. I then made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, two sliced sausages, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 9, episode 17 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup Carol introduces in the audience Don Sutton, the pitcher for the LA Dodgers, who is there with his wife. 

            Carol says she watches one soap opera and everybody knows that because she talks about All My Children all the time. She found out that Nick Benedict who plays Philip was in the audience so she brings him up and gets the audience to ask him questions. Someone asks where he got his curly hair and he says from his Italian father. Are the shows live? No they are always a week ahead. A woman asks if he’s married and he asks, “What are you doing tonight?” No. 

            Carol and Harvey play a couple who hardly ever have time for each other because they lead very busy lives. She suggests that they have lunch today at noon but then realizes she can’t. She says “How about 13:00?” but he has a meeting. He says at 15:30 he has a free eight minutes but she can’t do it. She says one of them has to pick up Bob at 16:00. Harvey says he’s not ready to discuss that merger but she reminds him that Bob is their son. Harvey says, “Let’s have lunch sometime”. Suddenly Carol says, “I think it’s time” then stands up and we see she’s pregnant. He asks, “Do you need me?” She says, “No, I won’t be long” then she leaves. Harvey wonders how that happened. 

            Steve Lawrence sings “In the Still of the Night” by Cole Porter from the 1937 film Rosalie.

            Carol plays Marge and Vicki plays her co-worker Carla. Carla says she has a great riddle but Marge says she doesn’t want to hear it because riddles give her a headache. Carla tells it anyway: “You’re in a room with all southern exposure. A bear walks by. What colour is the bear?” (It would be white because if the view is south from all sides that’s the only colour a bear would be). Marge says brown and Carla starts laughing. Marge asks what colour it is. Carla says, “It’s a riddle! Figure it out!” “I don’t want to. I’ve got the headache that I told you riddles give me. Just tell me what colour is the bear”. Carla says, “I can’t. I don’t know the answer”. Steve sits with them and hears about the riddle. He knows the answer but wants to share a different one. “You’re driving a bus. There’s ten people on the bus. At the first stop two people get on and four people get off. At the next stop three people get on and four people get off. At the next stop nobody gets on and two people get off. What’s the name of the bus driver?” (Obviously if you’re driving the bus it’s your name). Marge thinks there’s no answer. Carla figures it out and whispers the answer to Steve. Marge asks for the answer but Steve says it’s not fair to tell her. But he whispers to Clara the colour of the bear. Marge starts shouting at them. Carla says, “If you’re gonna get this upset you shouldn’t get involved in riddles in the first place!” Carla and Steve leave, but then Harvey comes up to tell her the riddle about the bear. She starts beating him up. 

            Tim plays a boss with a Swedish accent. He’s just gotten an intercom for himself and his secretary Mrs. Wiggins (played by Carol) so they can communicate more efficiently. But every time he tries to communicate with her she pushes the button to talk without hearing what he is saying. This goes on back and forth until he gives up on the intercoms. 

            Carol and Steve are sitting together. She tells him how beautiful his and his wife Eydie Gormé’s TV special was and that they never sang better. Steve is asking Carol trivia questions from match books, like “What was President Truman’s profession before he went into politics?” He was a haberdasher. “What was a nickname for the Model T?” The Tin Lizzy. Carol asks one: “The most Oscars won by a single person is 35. Who won them?” Steve says Walt Disney. “What musical instrument does Benny…” The answer is clarinet. “What year was the gramophone invented?” Steve doesn’t know but the answer is 1915. This is a segue to Carol and Steve’s duet. Steve sings “That Wonderful Year”, which was written by Carol’s husband Joe Hamilton for The Garry Moore Show. Then he sings the 1916 song “Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go With Friday on Saturday Night” by Sam Lewis, Joe Young, and George W. Meyer. Carol sings the 1914 song “Out Among the Sheltering Pines” by Abe Olman and James Brockman. Carol and Steve sing the 1914 song “By the Beautiful Sea” by Harry Carroll and Harold R. Atteridge. They sing the 1915 song “Memories by Egbert Van Alstyne and Gus Kahn. Then the 1914 song “When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose” by Percy Wenrich and Jack Mahoney. Then the 1915 song “I Ain’t Got Nobody” by Spencer Williams and Roger A. Graham. The Carol sings “Play a Simple Melody” by Irving Berlin from the 1915 musical Watch Your Step with Steve singing the counterpoint. Then they sing the 1914 song “Twelfth Street Rag” by Euday L. Bowman. 

            They do a salute to the oldest surviving movie studio that started in 1912: Universal. 

            In 1948 Universal won its first Oscar for Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet. Harvey plays Hamlet and Tim plays the gravedigger who hands him Yorick, the King’s Jester’s skull. He holds it with the back of the skull facing the camera and laughs. He says, “Even in death he has not lost his power to make men laugh!” Then he turns the skull around and it’s wearing the Grouch Marx mask with the glasses, big eyebrows, big nose and moustache. 

            Vicki says one Universal’s hits in 1972 was called Pete and Tilly, that starred Walter Matthau and others. The joke is that it co-starred Carol Burnett. 

            Tim talks about Universal’s Rooster Cogburn, starring Katherine Hepburn and John Wayne. Carol plays Hepburn and Harvey plays Wayne. She’s listing all the strict rules she’s going to impose on him during their journey west and so he stuffs his eyepatch in her mouth. 

            Harvey talks about the 1962 film Freud: the Secret Passion, starring Montgomery Clift. Steve plays Freud and Vicki his patient. he tells her she mustn’t be ashamed of her sexuality, then he excuses himself to go shame-shame. 

            Harvey talks about the recent film Earthquake, starring Charleton Heston. Carol and Steve play a couple having an affair. They begin kissing when the earthquake starts and are finished just when it stops, so they think it was just them. 

            Carol says in 1954 Universal released The Glen Miller Story. She sings “Moonlight Serenade” by Glen Miller and Mitchell Parish. The band plays “Tuxedo Junction” by Erskine Hawkins Bill Johnson, and Julian Dash while the dancers Jitterbug. Vicki as part of a vocal quintet sings “Perfidia” by Alberto Dominguez with English lyrics by Milton Leeds. Then Carol comes out and sings it as a lead vocal. Steve then sings “At Last” by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren from the 1941 film Sun Valley Serenade. Then the dancers dance some more in that old style to another Glenn Miller tune. Harvey pretends to play a saxophone and sings the 1942 song “I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo” also by Gordon and Warren. The dancers dance to the 1940 song “Pennsylvania 6-5000” by Jerry Gray and Carl Sigman. Then everybody sings “Jukebox Saturday Night” by Al Stillman and Paul McGrane from the 1942 show Stars on Ice. Steve sings “Serenade in Blue” by Warren and Gordon from the 1942 film Orchestra Wives. Carol returns to “Moonlight Serenade”. 

            Nick Benedict made his film debut at the age of 9 in the 1955 movie Wiretapper. He played Philip Brent on All My Children from 1973 to 1978, for which he was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award. He played Curtis Reed on Days of Our Lives from 1993 to 2001. He appeared in seven episodes of Santa Barbara. He appeared in thirty episodes of Tribes. He co-starred in The Pistol: Birth of a Legend.