On Friday morning I posted on Facebook “The Cannibal Gourmets”, my translation of “Les anthropophages” by Serge Gainsbourg. I then looked for the next Gainsbourg song on my list that I haven’t yet translated usually because I couldn’t find the text or the audio of the song online. I found that the next one is a 1972 parody he wrote of his most famous song “Je t’aime. Moi non plus” but there is no audio for it online. The next song after that is a parody of “Que je t’aime”, which was a big hit for Johnny Halliday (the French Elvis). It was written for a TV show and there is only one video of the performance of the song by Jean Pierre Cassel and Jane Birkin but it’s on INA France, and Clip Grab can’t copy it. I realized though that I can probably just record the audio with Audacity, download that and then upload it to Sonix to get a transcript. I’ll do that tomorrow.
I weighed 90.05 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin during song practice and as usual it went out of tune for every song.
Around midday I painted the second and final coat of the shade of pink called “crazy in love” onto the top of my bathroom lazy Susan. On Sunday I’ll start painting the flower reliefs on my future bathroom mirror frame with the same hue.
I weighed 91.15 before lunch.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back stopped at Freshco. Outside the supermarket I ran into my upstairs neighbour Shawn. He said he’ll help me pressure the landlord into dealing with the bedbugs and he’ll get Darnel, or neighbour in unit 5 to join us. I’m sure my upstairs neighbour David will contribute as well, so that will make 4 out of 7 tenants.
At Freshco I bought seven bags of cherries, some bananas, a pack of honey garlic chicken wings (made from honey garlic chickens), two packs of Full City Dark coffee, a jar of salsa, and a lint roller. I price matched the cherries to the No Frills price of $4.34 a kilo.
I weighed 90.9 kilos at 18:15.
I worked on getting caught up in my journal but was still behind at suppertime.
I had a potato with gravy and a thick slice of roast pork while watching season 9, episode 7 of The Carol Burnett Show.
During the audience warmup someone asks who designed the set. Carol says it’s Paul Barnes.
Someone asks what Carol is laughing at when she looks at the back of the room. She says the producers and directors are all in a glass booth back there getting drunk.
The first sketch is an episode of Mama’s Family. Mama, Eunice, Ed, and their guest, Ed’s friend Mickey Hart are just finishing supper. Eunice talks everybody into playing charades. She says she doesn’t want to force anybody so Mama says, “Well then let’s not play!” Eunice says it’ll be the men against the women. Each team has to think up two charades. Eunice tries to teach Mama all the signals for movie, a saying, a song, a play, a book, little words, “Th” words, the word “that”, a proper name, sounds like, and syllables. They come up with “Under the Bamboo Tree” and :The Scarlet Pimpernel”. Ed tries to get Mickey to guess “Under the Bamboo Tree”. He gets that it’s a four word song. Ed tries to mime someone being tortured with bamboo shoots under their fingernails but it’s not obvious. He tries to mime “under” but Mickey doesn’t get it and Ed becomes more and more frustrated until he calls him “dumb” and an “idiot”. After that Mickey refuses to play so Ed apologizes to him and they continue. Mickey finally gets “Under” just as the time is up. Mama has to mime “Supplemental Hardware Guide”. She starts with the word “Guide” but all she does is point. She tries to do “Sup” by miming eating. By the time Eunice gets it the time has run out. Next Mickey indicates it’s a movie and Ed immediately guesses The Scarlet Pimpernel because he watched it on TV last night. Eunice tries to mime “Wait Till the Sun Shines Nelly”. She gets wait and that the second word rhymes with “pill” but never guesses “till”. She finally gets “Wait Till the Sun Shines Something” and knows the song but can’t remember “Nelly”. She gets “sounds like belly” but still can’t remember until she finally gets it but they are two minutes over time. Eunice is very upset. She is particularly mad about “supplemental hardware guide” which nobody could get “especially when playing with a dumb cluck like her!” Ed says, “Let’s have another game” and suddenly Eunice is in a good mood again.
The Pointer Sisters sing “How Long (Betcha Got a Chick on the Side)” by Anita Pointer, Bonnie Pointer, and David Rubinson from their 1975 album Steppin.
Harvey plays a bartender in an empty bar when Carol walks in. She sits at the bar and says “Just make it strong”. He offers her Jack Daniels but she doesn’t want anything with a man’s name on it. She gets a drink and then follows the cliché of pouring out your troubles to a bartender. She talks about a guy who ran out on her after three years and Harvey starts joking. She says they met in Chicago. Harvey says, “The windy city. I knew a chicken there who laid the same egg three times”. She says they were going to get married. Harvey says, “You never know what happiness is until you get married… and then it’s too late”. Carol is mad that he’s joking while she bares her heart. She says she was going to have one last drink before ending it all. Harvey says he had a friend who ended it all by dressing like a pine tree and throwing himself in front of Euell Gibbons (a reference to Gibbons saying that the pine tree is edible). She shouts for him to stop it but he says he can’t because it’s the only way he can keep his sanity when everybody is pouring out their troubles to him. He says he’s got troubles too but has no one to tell them to. She says he can tell them to her. He tells her about a woman he was with who left him. He tried to find somebody else but nobody could hold a candle to her. Carol asks, “Where did you meet her? A dynamite factory?” He tells her she’s all right then asks if she’d care to join him in a cup of coffee. She says, “Sure but do you think we’d both fit?”
Tim does his stairs, platform, stool, music stand skit. He starts singing “Just in Time” by Jule Styne and Betty Comden from the 1956 musical Bells Are Ringing but his stool collapses and he tumbles off the platform.
Tim does it again, this time without sitting on the stool. He starts singing “Make Someone Happy” by the same writers from the 1960 musical Do Re Me. This times he falls through the platform.
Harvey plays a DJ who’s a parody of Wolfman Jack called Sheepman Jack. His guests are The Painter Sisters. He says, “I hear you’re a great rock group but they say, no. They don’t do rock but rather standards like “Stardust” and “Body and Soul”. Their influence is The Andrews Sisters. They like Gershwin, Porter, and Broadway songs. They start singing “The Sound of Music” but Jack cuts them off, saying “You can’t sing that here”. He signs off and changes his voice to say he agrees with their taste in music but his listeners wouldn’t. But then the girls reveal that they just do standards for the money and what they really like is rock and roll.
Carol and Tim do a silent film. They are two down and out people too poor to buy a hot dog. But Carol sees a sign that reads “Fight Killer Bronco and Win $1” and pushes Tim into the ring. Bronco is much bigger and Tim is getting beat. Carol puts a horseshoe in his glove but now he can barely lift it. Carol helps him cheat and Bronco is knocked out. They win the $1 and buy two hotdogs but see two poor people who are hungry. Carol and Tim give them the buns and keep the dogs.
Carol is the bride to be at a bridal shower. Her mother is there played by Vicki and the dancers and The Pointer Sisters play her friends. Carol is drunk and getting drunker. They sing “Get Me to the Church On Time” by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner from the 1956 musical My Fair Lady. With the help of the Pointer Sisters the song is done as more of a gospel style number. But by the time they are done Carol is collapsed on the floor.
The Pointer Sisters started out singing in their father’s church. While touring and developing their act they also worked as backup singers for recording artists such as Boz Scaggs, Grace Slick, and Elvin Bishop. They started recording in 1971 and their single “Send Him Back” became a Northern Soul classic. They released their self titled album in 1973 and had a hit with “Yes We Can Can” by Allen Toussaint. Their second album in 1974 was That’s a Plenty, which contained the country song “Fairytale” by Bonnie and Anita Pointer. It won the Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Group. They became the first black group to perform at the Grand Ol Opry. That year they made their TV debut on The Helen Reddy Show. Their third album in 1975 was Steppin, which gave them the #1 R&B hit “Betcha Got a Chick on the Side”. They co-starred in the movie Car Wash in 1976. In 1976 they provided voices for Pinball Number Count for Sesame Street. Bonnie left the group in 1977 and they became a trio. That year they released their fourth album Having a Party. In 1978 their cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire” from their album Energy was a #2 hit. Their 1980 album Special Things produced the top ten hit “He’s So Shy” by Tom Snow and Cynthia Weil. Their 1981 album Black and White had the top ten hit “Slow Hand” by Michael Clark and John Bettis. Their 1984 album Break Out had two top ten hits with “I’m So Excited, written by the Pointer Sisters and Trevor Lawrence; and “Neutron Dance” by Allee Willis and Danny Sambello, which featured prominently in Beverly Hills Cop. In 1985 they won a Grammy for “Jump” and another for “Automatic”. That year they also performed on the charity hit song “We Are the World”. They hosted the TV special The Pointer Sisters: Up All Nite in 1987. In 1996 they performed in the closing ceremony of the Atlanta Summer Olympics. They had a #2 hit in Belgium in 2005 with a cover of “Sisters Are Doin it for Themselves” by Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. After June Pointer died in 2006 she was replaced by Ruth’s daughter Issa. They’ve had 13 top 20 hits.
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