Nacio Herb Brown

            On Saturday morning I finished memorizing “La complainte de Bonnot” by Boris Vian. I’ll start working out the chords tomorrow. I did the first draft of a translation of most of “Ça” (That), which is a parody of the Serge Gainsbourg song “Je t’aime. Moi non plus (I Love You. Neither Do I)”. I’ll finish that tomorrow and then I’ll revise my translation while listening to the audio. Since this is a long dialogue and not a song I won’t bother memorizing it. 

            I weighed 89.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time. 

            Since the back of my toilet is leaking I keep the water turned off unless I have to flush it. Then after I fill up the tank I flush it before turning the water off again. I had to do that three times during song practice. 

            Around midday I rode down to No Frills where the cherries were very cheap at $4.34 a kilo. I bought seven bags of cherries, a pack of Canadian strawberries, some bananas, a boneless pork sirloin half, a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread, medium freezer bags, plastic wrap, a new brand of pasta sauce called Stefano, a box of saltines, three bags of microfiltered skim milk, three small containers of PC skyr because they didn’t have the big ones, and two bags of Miss Vickie’s chips. 

            When I got home I realized that I’d forgotten to buy bleach so I walked over to the hardware store. I inquired about steamers for fighting bedbugs. The guy said they’ll be getting the Dirt Devil steamer in on Monday. He didn’t know anything about it killing bedbugs but it says so in the product profile online. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos at 14:40, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since May 20. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with some homemade iced tea mixed with lemonade. 

            I took a siesta and got up too late to take a bike ride. 

            I weighed 89.55 kilos at 17:20. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:17. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity, then extracted to my hard drive side 1 of another tape of recordings of my song “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” at Mike’s Place with Mike on drums. We were getting a little more polished on this song at this point. There is nothing recorded on side 2. The next tape I’ll digitize is one of my friend Tom Smarda playing his songs. 

            I worked on digitally enhancing one of my old photos. 

            The rain today broke the heat so I was able to cook for the first time in a few days. I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, french fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching the tenth season premier of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            There is a parody of the sitcom Mary Hartman Mary Hartman but set in the world of nursery rhymes and starring Carol as Mary Mary Quite Contrary. The phone rings and Mary crawls out from the cupboard under the kitchen sink to answer with “Good morning” but then confesses that she doesn’t really know if it’s a good morning so she goes to check and comes back to say “Fair morning”. It’s the police telling her that her grandfather Wee Willy (Winkie) has been arrested for peekabooing. Mary says she’ll be right over but then her neighbour Loretta (played by Vicki) comes over to relate a tail of being terrorized by a spider like Little Miss Muffett. On the way over she saw Wee Willy Winkie in his nighty heading towards the old woman who lives in a shoe. Loretta’s horny husband Charlie Haggers (played by Jim Nabors) comes over and wants Loretta back home so they can have sex but suddenly she is paralyzed from the waist down. He says he heard the old woman in the shoe has never been married. Mary asks how she got all those children. Wee Willy (played by Tim) arrives. The police have the place surrounded and threaten to blow the house down. Mary crawls back under the sink. 

            Jim Nabors sings “Let Me Be There” by John Rostill that was a hit for Olivia Newton John in 1973. 

            Tim plays a businessman who’s been driving for two days and stops to sleep at a motel. But the walls are thin and he can hear the couple arguing in the room next door. One of them throws a lamp right through the wall. Then he hears a fly buzzing. He gets the fly to follow him out the door but then he locks himself out and has to climb in through the window above the door. Then he hears a little knock and opens the door and it’s the fly. He catches the fly but it pulls him by his fist forces him out the window. 

            In the Mama’s Family sketch, Eunice, Ed, and Mama are playing Monopoly. Eunice lands on Boardwalk and is ecstatic because she already has Park Place and all her life she has wanted to have both at the same time. She thinks it’s an omen that her whole life is about to change. She believes with the houses and hotels she will buy for those locations it will render her invincible. Mama is interested in a sale at the mall and Ed is interested in a western on TV. Eunice thinks they want to quit because she’s on the verge of the greatest triumph of her life. They return to the game. Mama finds all this talk of mortgaging property in Monopoly depressing since she spends all week trying to make ends meet. Ed has to pay Eunice most of his money in the game and he’s upset. Mama tells him he should be used to going broke by now. Eunice gets a call from her brother Philip who is in Rome writing a movie. Mama talks to him and hears he’s engaged to an Italian movie star. She wants to know if she speaks English because if she doesn’t he won’t be able to understand what his kids are saying. Eunice spends all her money on houses and hotels. But then she lands on St. Charles Place and owes Mama $750. She has to mortgage some of her property to pay. On her next move Eunice owes Ed $1050. She doesn’t like Ed’s attitude but Mama tells her to let him enjoy making a little money since he never had that pleasure in real life. Eunice is bankrupt and very upset. She goes out in the rain to shout about her bad luck and comes back in soaking wet. She sits and sulks while Mama and Ed enjoy the game. 

            The musical tribute is to Nacio Herb Brown in a segment called Shipwreck in Tahiti. Tim plays a witch doctor who makes couples fall in love by shaking his magic gourd over them. Carol sings “Broadway Rhythm” with lyrics by Arthur Freed from the 1952 movie Singin in the Rain. Jim Nabors is washed up on the beach and Carol sings to him “Temptation” with lyrics by Freed from the 1933 film Going Hollywood. At first Jim is frightened of her but Tim makes him fall in love and then Jim sings the 1940 song “You Stepped Out of a Dream” with lyrics by Gus Kahn. Carol sings “If You Will Hold My Hand” from the 1931 film A Woman of Experience. Harvey sings “Alone” from the 1935 film A Night At the Opera. Tim makes the volcano erupt and a hurricane hit the island. Vicki, who was also shipwrecked wakes up to perform “Singing in the Rain”. Jim gets hit over the head with debris and it breaks the spell so he is back with Vicki and sings with her “You Were Meant for Me” from the 1929 film The Broadway Melody. Harvey sings to Carol “Good Morning” from Singing in the Rain. Carol sings “You Are My Lucky Star” from Broadway Melody. Vicki and Jim leave in a canoe and the rest return to singing “Broadway Rhythm” to finish. 

            Nacio Herb Brown studied at the Mnaual Arts High School in Los Angeles. He became a successful realtor but continued writing songs. His first hit was “Coral Sea” in 1920. After his first big hit “When Buddha Smiles” in 1921 he quit real estate and became a full time songwriter. He collaborated with lyricist and producer Arthur Freed on many hits, including “Singing in the Rain”, “Good Morning”, and “Broadway Melody”. He also collaborated with lyricists B. G. "Buddy" DeSylva, Gus Kahn, Leo Robin and Gordon Clifford. He came to Hollywood in 1928 under contract to MGM because now that they were making sound films they needed composers. He made his film debut in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. He co-wrote the music for the television show Hopalong Cassidy in 1949.