Betty Ford

            On Friday morning after midnight I put down two sided carpet tape all around the edge of my futon underneath the fitted sheet, then I did the same to the outside of the fitted sheet. While putting the last strip of tape at the foot of my bed I noticed a bedbug on the bedroom curtain that covers the inside of the passage between the bedroom and the living room. I killed it and noticed another and killed that one as well. Then I did a search of the whole curtain for more monsters and discovered at the top, in and around the rod pocket a shitload of bedbug nests. They looked like they’d been there for quite a while as I’d never looked up there for bedbugs. I started killing them and spent at least half an hour, probably destroying at least fifty. I realized that my project for today was going to be washing and drying those curtains as well as using my steamer on the wooden curtain rods. I didn’t get to bed until 2:45 but I slept well until 4:43 when I got up to pee, then went back to sleep for fifteen more minutes. After yoga I didn’t find many bedbugs stuck to the tape on the bed but there were a few on the tape on the floor at the head of my bed. 

            I worked out the chords for line 3 of “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian. There’s one line left in the first verse and I’ll probably have it done tomorrow. I think the chords for all the verses will be the same so after that I’ll work out the chords for the chorus. 

            I ran through singing and playing “The Seduction of Doctor Faust”, my translation of “Docteur Faust” by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare it for publication. 

            I weighed 91.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the first of two sessions and it went out of tune constantly. 

            Around midday I did my laundry nine days after the last time specifically to wash the two sets of curtains that separate my bedroom and living room because I’d found several bedbug nests in the rod pockets of the curtains on the bedroom side. I also washed whatever else had gotten dirty in the last 9 days.

            I weighed 92 kilos at 16:10. 

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

            I weighed 92.3 kilos at 18:35. 

            I was still two days behind in my journal and worked on catching up. 

            I grilled eight chicken drumsticks and had two with a potato and gravy while watching an interview with Vikki Carr. 

            Vikki was onstage at the age of 4 in school. 

            At 18 her father allowed her to go on the road to sing for 5 or 6 shows a night in Nevada lounges. The casinos were 24 hours and so the times of the shows would change from week to week: 6:00 to 12:00; 9:00 to 15:00; 12:00 to 18:00; 15:00 to 21:00; and then 18:00 to midnight. 

            Over the years she developed one of the finest microphone techniques in the business. She would tell the sound person not to change the levels once she started because she knew what she was doing. In the casinos they would turn off the singer’s mic to announce the jackpot even if they were in the middle of a soaring vocal. 

            On television she was not allowed to sing the word “god” in her hit song “It Must Be Him”. And yet they were okay with her singing the line “and I thank god I’m alive” in the song “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”. But once “It Must Be Him” hit #1 in England it was re-released in the US and she was allowed to sing it. Her song “Sleeping Between Two People” was banned in Boston. 

            She has a reputation for crying while singing sad songs. After she performed “It Must Be Him” on Ed Sullivan Ed came over with a handkerchief and asked if she was alright. 

            She worked with Perry Como in Mexico and he complimented her on her cologne. He asked what she was wearing. She said it was Chloe and he said, “I’m gonna get a gallon of that for my wife and if she doesn’t smell like you I’m gonna get rid of her.” 

            She says Dean Martin never rehearsed and so the guest had to be the one to carry the musical number that he would join in on. 

            The song line-ups for Vikki's shows are subject to change based on the audience. 

            She was performing in a show with Jack Benny and Bobby Vinton and Jack was watching Bobby perform. He said, “I don’t know whether to watch or listen”. If you move around too much the audience gets confused. 

            She can’t wear the thirteen centimeter heels as much anymore because all those years of wearing them have given her hammer toes and bunions. Her beaded gowns weight 16 kilos. 

            When she guest hosted The Tonight Show she had just come back from entertaining the troops in Vietnam with Danny Kaye. They asked her who she’d like to have as a guest and she said Danny Kaye but they said he’s always refused to appear on The Tonight Show. So she asked him and he came. After her opening song she went and sat in the guest’s chair until Ed McMahon reminded her that she was the host. 

            Vikki was at the White House to present Gerald Ford with the latest Easter Seals. She told him if there’s anything he needs to just call her. Later she got a call from Ford who told her that he and Betty would be receiving the chancellor of Austria and wanted to arrange for some entertainment so he asked her to sing. But when she started making arrangements to bring her band in the White House hadn’t been informed that she had been asked to perform. She had to inform them that their boss had invited her. Betty had just had a double mastectomy and Vikki wore a low cut dress. Later she told Ford that if he’s ever in LA feel free to visit and she’ll cook him some Mexican food. She asked him what was his favourite Mexican dish and he answered, “You”. The next day it was in all the papers and Vikki was on Betty Ford’s black list for performing at the White House along with Raquel Welch. Vikki’s mother called her and demanded to know what she’d done at the White House. 

            Vikki doesn’t have many show business friends because her social life is about family. 

            Vikki was getting bronchitis 8 or 9 times a year from performing in places with cigarette smoke. People called it “Vegas throat”. She started losing her voice and so she went for allergy tests until it was discovered that she was allergic to everything but especially cigarette smoke. At the Riviera she asked the management to request that the audience refrain from smoking but the owner refused because the gamblers are more important. So Vikki asked the audience herself to not smoke and the room was clear of smoke for the first time. It made the headlines. After that she became an anti-smoking activist and the chairman of the American Lung Association. She started boycotting clubs that allowed smoking. 

            It was a joy to work with Carol Burnett and her crew. Inspired by Carol, Vikki started taking questions from the audience before her shows. 

            Vikki always wanted to be a dancer but Debbie Reynolds told her to just keep singing. 

            Vikki doesn’t think Carol could make a career as a singer but it worked as part of her comedy.

            Carol made her guests feel they were part of the family. 

            Lyle Waggoner had an incredible home in Mazatlán, Mexico and she could see it from her hotel room. It was featured in Architectural Digest. Lyle acted more professionally than the rest of the cast.

            Vikki was mistaken for Vicki Lawrence a lot. 

            She would watch Sonny and Cher just to see what Cher was going to wear. 

            Vikki later took ballroom dance lessons and won several trophies. 

            She asked George Burns what to say to young people who ask how to get into show business. He told her, “The minute they ask, they’re never gonna make it.” 

            Betty Ford studied ballet, tap, and modern movement when she was 8. At 14, in the wake of the Great Depression shew made money buy working as a model and teaching popular dances to children. She started her own dance school while still in high school. After graduation she was accepted as a dance student of Martha Graham in New York and worked as a fashion model to pay her tuition. She joined Graham’s troupe and performed at Carnegie Hall. 

            She was married unhappily to Willian G. Warren from 1942 to 1947. She married Gerald Ford a month after divorcing Warren. They had four children and Gerald was often away campaigning for half the year leaving Betty to raise the children. She never used corporal punishment. 

            In 1964 a pinched nerve on the left side of her face led to valium addiction. She also became an alcoholic. 

            She was a supporter of abortion rights. 

            When her husband’s political career became more intense in 1965 she suffered a nervous breakdown and sought psychiatric help. She did not enjoy being a politician’s wife and was thrilled when he suggested that he might retire from congress in 1977. But when Spiro Agnew retired as vice president in 1973, Richard Nixon appointed Ford his new vice president, and so Betty became the Second Lady of the US. 

            When interviewed by Barbara Walters she expressed her support for the Supreme Court making abortion constitutionally protected. She also supported Federally funded daycare, which Nixon opposed.

            After Nixon resigned her husband was made president and she became First Lady. The press caught Gerald patting Betty’s behind the day he was sworn in. They also broke the tradition of the president and his wife sleeping in separate bedrooms. After a 1975 interview with McCall’s Magazine she commented that they’d asked her everything but how often she and the president had sex. Then she added that if they had asked she would have answered, “As often as possible”. 

            She was the most politically outspoken First Lady since Eleonor Roosevelt. She surprised the media by supporting a woman’s right to an abortion, which went against the official stance of her husband’s Republican Party. 

            After her double mastectomy she became the first US First Lady to make public her medical records since Florence Harding in 1922. This raised awareness of cancer, which the US public had been reluctant to discuss. 

            In 1976 she made a cameo appearance on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. 

            She lobbied her husband to award Martha Graham the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

            She revived dancing as an activity at White House state dinners. 

            She became a symbol of Liberal Republicanism. Some of her views were even more liberal than those of Jimmy Carter’s wife Rosalynn Carter. When Gerald was running for re-election some supporters created buttons that read, “Betty’s Husband for President” and “Keep Betty in the White House”. 

            When her husband was defeated by Carter, Betty became the only First Lady in history to deliver her husband’s concession speech. 

            In 1978 she submitted herself to treatment for prescription drug and alcohol addiction. As she had been about her cancer she was outspoken about her addiction. In 1982 she established The Betty Ford Clinic for the treatment of chemical dependency. 

            She spoke out against the bans on gay citizens serving in the military.