Johnny Mercer

            On Thursday morning when I checked for bedbugs there were still a lot more after the steaming. It’s as if the steamer itself is spawning them but I guess the heat is forcing them out from deep in the wall. 

            I worked out the chords for the first verse and the first line of the second verse of “La complainte de Bonnot” by Boris Vian. The second verse has the same chords as the first except for the end where it goes lower. 

            I ran through the French text while listening to the audio of “Ça” (That), the parody of the Serge Gainsbourg song “Je t’aime. Moi non plus (I Love You. Neither Do I)” to see if I’d split the two voices correctly. I had to split them up some more and so that changes the meaning slightly and I had to revise my translation again. I haven’t quite finished that but I will tomorrow and then I’ll check with the audio again. 

            I weighed 89.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I worked on getting caught up in my journal. 

            I weighed 90.65 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. The cherries these days are still cheap so I got seven bags. I also bought a pack of Quebec strawberries, some bananas, a jar of natural peanut butter, a pack of Full City Dark coffee, and some 2 in 1 shampoo. When I got home I realized I’d forgotten to buy Sponge Towels so I rode back to Freshco to get a pack.

            I weighed 89.9 kilos at 18:50. 

            I was behind on my journal so I worked on getting caught up. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last two strips of finger beef while watching season 10, episode 9 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warmup someone asks Carol why all of her gowns have pockets. She says she specifically asks Bob Mackie to give them pockets because she never knows what to do with her hands. 

            Someone asks Carol what alternative career she would have chosen. She says a school teacher for college boys. 

            In the first sketch Tim’s old man character is the counter person and the cook at a diner when Harvey sits down to order a hot dog and a chocolate milkshake. Tim keeps forgetting the order and so Harvey grabs his pad from him and writes it down. Tim asks, “What’s a hot dag?” When that’s cleared up Tim asks what he wants on it and he says he wants it plain. Tim asks if he wants a bun. Harvey asks, “What’s a hotdog without a bun?” Tim says, “A lonely weenie”. Tim pulls the hot dog out of the steamer but there are 12 of them linked and he doesn’t have the strength to break one off so he lowers 11 of them into the garbage disposal. Tim pulls the fries out of the hot grease with his bare hand but doesn’t feel burned until Harvey points it out to him. Tim is struggling with a box of buns while Harvey is holding the wiener. Harvey puts the frank in his vest pocket and takes a bun, then reaches for the hot dog but pulls out a cigar and puts it on the bun and bites into it. He blames Tim for that and abandons the idea of having a hot dog. He just asks for the chocolate shake. Tim puts a scoop in the metal cup, adds milk and chocolate. Tim asks if he wants it thick or thin and Harvey says thick. As he struggles with the scoop, Harvey is cracking up. Tim puts it under the mixer and pours in in a glass. Harvey asks why he couldn’t have been that efficient with the hot dog. Harvey takes a drink and spits it out, saying it’s horrible. Tim says it probably needs more ice cream and gets another scoop. But then Harvey looks and sees he made the shake with mashed potatoes. Tim says in that case he’ll have to charge him for the Blue Plate Special. 

            Ken Barry does a number with a group of male dancers and the scene is a patio bar where he and the other guys are harassing and inappropriately touching a waiter. Ken sings “Love Stolen” by Alfred Uhry and Robert Waldman from the 1975 musical The Robber Bridegroom. In the dance, a lot of female dancers are grabbed as if against their will. Eventually one very tall woman turns the tables on Ken.

            They do a parody of Mildred Pierce called Mildred Fierce with Carol playing the Joan Crawford part. She comes into a police station to confess to the murder of her husband. Tim takes down her confession and so she tells the story, starting from just after her first husband left her. She breaks the news to her spoiled daughter Vida (played by Vicki) who only cares about lost money. She asks her mother how a no talent klutz like her is ever gonna make any money. After three years Mildred is making money but Vida is embarrassed because she has a chain of restaurants called Mildred’s Fatburgers so she runs away. Monty Slick arrives (played by Harvey) to sell her one of his buildings for another restaurant. Vida returns and is impressed with Monty the lecherous playboy she’s heard of. She encourages her mother to marry Monty so they can be rich. Monty says he’s not interested in marriage. Vida reminds him flirtatiously they he’d also be living with her and so he agrees to marry Mildred. He embraces Mildred and kisses Vida at the same time. Returning to the present, Tim informs Mildred that they caught the real killer and Vida is brought in. Mildred continues telling the story. She is married to Monty and when she comes home from work she catches him making out with Vida. Vida tells her they are getting married and running away together. Mildred leaves but then Monty tells Vida he never said he’d marry her and won’t. Vida grabs a gun and shoots him. Mildred returns and agrees to take the blame to save Vida. Returning to the present, Mildred tell Tim that this is only Vida’s first murder and she’s sorry. Tim says he’ll let her go this time but don’t do this again. But we hear Vida being unrepentant and on the way out of the police station Mildred shoots her, then comes back to confess to Tim. 

            They do a mini-musical built on the lyrics of Johnny Mercer. Sam (played by Harvey) pretends to play piano and sings “Laura” with music by David Raksin from the 1945 musical Laura. Carol plays Laura who waits tables in a place owned by Eddy who Laura is in love with. But Eddy (played by Ken) is in love with the singer Tangerine (played by Vicki). Laura sings the 1942 song “Not Mine” with music by Victor Schertzinger. Eddy sings the 1941 song “Tangerine” also composed by Schertzinger. Eddy tells Laura he’s going to ask Tangerine to marry him but he’s nervous. She tells him what to say by singing, “Namely You” with music by gene De Paul from the 1954 musical Li’l Abner. But when Tangerine walks in he sings, “My Night to Howl” with music by Robert Emmett Dolan from the 1964 musical Foxy. Tangerine does her stage act while singing, “Any Place I Hang My Hat is My Home” with music by Harold Arlen from the 1946 musical St. Louis Woman. Laura gets Eddy to give Tangerine the ring and then she goes off to party with some customers. Eddy sings more of “Tangerine”. Sam sings the 1944 song “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive” with music by Harold Arlen. Then Laura sings it to Eddy. But then Tangerine comes back. Sam sings to Laura “Namely You”. But then Eddy joins in and gives the ring to Laura. They kiss and leave together. Sam sings “Laura”, then Tangerine sits with her arm around him. 

            Johnny Mercer learned to dance from Arthur Murray. He started as a singer and songwriter for Paul Whitemena. He started writing songs for and acting in movies in 1935. He teamed up with Hoagy Carmichael in 1933 and they co-wrote “Lazybones”, which earned them each $1250 ($32, 223 today). He moved to Hollywood in 1935 to write songs for movies. He wrote the song “Hooray for Hollywood” for the movie Hollywood Hotel. He wrote the words and music to “I’m An Old Cowhand” and it was his first hit. He got his first Academy Award nomination in 1938 for “Jeepers Creepers”. The same year he co-wrote “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby”. In 1941 he started writing songs with Harold Arlen and their first hit was “Blues in the Night”. They wrote “One for My Baby”, “Come Rain or Come Shine”, and “That Old Black Magic”. , He co-founded Capital Records in 1942 for $25,000 and sold it to EMI in 1955 for $20 million. In 1946 he won his first Oscar for “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe”. In 1951 he won another Academy Award with Carmichael for “In the Cool Cool Cool of the Evening”. He wrote “Moon River”, “Days of Wine and Roses” in 1961 earning him his fourth and fifth Oscars. He wrote the horrible English version of “Les feuilles mortes” called “Autumn Leaves”. In 1965 he wrote the English lyrics for “Der Sommerwind” and it became a hit for Frank Sinatra. He wrote the lyrics for more than 1,500 songs. He was nominated for 19 Oscars and won 4. He was sometimes Judy Garland’s lover. A fan named Sadie Vimmerstedt once wrote Johnny a letter telling him that “I Wanna Be Around to Pick Up the Pieces When Somebody Breaks Your Heart” would be a great title for a song. Mercer agreed and wrote the song, which became a hit and he shared half the royalties with Sadie. He co-wrote and “Something’s Gotta Give”. I think Mercer was overrated as a lyricist. I steamed my baseboards again.