Steve Carell

            On Tuesday I went to bed at 1:40. I slept fairly well and woke up to pee at 4:30, then went back to sleep until 5:00. After yoga I checked for bedbugs and there were quite a few on the old exit door at the head of my bed. There were also several stuck to the carpet tape on the floor between the head of my bed and the door. 

            I tried to edit an old poem but discovered that the entire document that contains it is in Protected View. I unchecked all the boxes that should remove Protected View but it wouldn’t go away. I spent a lot of time trying to find solutions to the problem in search results but nothing I tried worked. I guess I’ll just transcribe the poem tomorrow. Because of this hassle I didn’t have time to work out any chords for “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian or “Docteur Faust” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the last of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time. 

            Around midday I put some two sided carpet tape on the bottom of the old exit door at the head of my bed. Some of the tape got wasted because it accidentally got stuck to tape that was already there and once it’s stuck to itself it won’t come apart. I ran out of tape so I’ll have to buy some more tomorrow. 

            I weighed 92.95 before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.

            I weighed 92.6 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was one day behind in my journal and worked on getting caught up. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last chicken leg while watching an interview with Steve Carell and another with Steve Lawrence on the topic of Carol Burnett. 

            Carell says Carol exudes joy in everything she does. He considers himself a student of The Carol Burnett Show. It was the first show one would set aside the evening to watch. There’s nothing like watching good people have fun with each other. Her comedy was never at anyone’s expense. 

            Breaking up is only funny when you’re trying not to. 

            The audience was instrumental to the energy of the show. 

            The interviewer tells him that Tina Fey compares The Office to Mama’s Family. Steve agrees.

            Even as a kid Steve thought Carol was hot but he never thought of what she did as being something only a woman could do. That’s why she was an inspiration to people of all genders. 

            Steve and Carol both did voices for Horton Hears a Who but they didn’t meet until he was promoting the movie with her. He says he had lofty expectations of her and she exceeded them. 

            Steve Lawrence met Carol even before he met his wife Eydie Gormé. He did a TV special with Carol Burnett and Dan Dailey. Then Steve and Eydie and Carol and Joe Hamilton became very good friends. Steve and Carol had similar musical tastes. 

            Once when he was on his way to guest on Carol’s show he drove there from his hotel but made a mistake because in California you have to be in the extreme right lane to make a right turn. A motorcycle cop pulled him over after he’d entered the studio but he thought the cop was an actor. Steve didn’t have his license on him and tried to tell the cop he was Steve Lawrence. To prove it he handed a script to the cop and had him read Carol’s part while he responded with the part he’d memorized. Then the cop told him it wasn’t funny. 

            Steve had guested on a lot of shows but Carol’s was the best organized show of any of them.

            Carol would say, “I can’t sing with Eydie Gormé! She’s the best singer in the world!” Eydie would say, “That’s true, but you sing very well yourself.” In the musical number that ended with Carol and Eydie in the front of the Hollywood sign as the camera in the helicopter pulled away to show them in the distance. Carol’s husband Joe Hamilton the producer thought it would be funny to just leave them there. He finally came back to pick them up and neither Carol or Eydie spoke to him until much later.

            When Steve and Eydie did a special on Irving Berlin they insisted on having Carol as a guest because she adored Berlin as much as they did. Carol gave an incredible performance of “Suppertime” on that show. 

            Steve and Eydie lived in the same building as Beverly Sills, who they called “Bubbles”.

            Steve went to a couple of acting classes but the instructor told him he was a natural talent and didn’t need instruction. 

            Paddy Chayefsky wrote a play called The Tenth Man. He got the idea from Steve when he told him that everyone is influenced by others and if you take from nine other people you become the tenth man. 

            Steve Carell originally wanted to be a lawyer but couldn’t think of a reason why. He was a member of Burpee’s Seedy Theatrical Company at Denison University, which is the oldest collegiate improv group in the US. After university he moved to Chicago where he taught improv and performed with Second City. He made his film debut in Curly Sue in 1991. He co-starred on The Dana Carvey Show. In 1999 he became a correspondent on The Daily Show for 288 episodes. He starred in The 40 Year-Old Virgin (which he co-wrote), Little Miss Sunshine, Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life, Get Smart, Date Night, Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2, Despicable Me 3, Despicable Me 4, Minions, Dinner for Schmucks, The Way Way Back, Last Flag Flying, Crazy Stupid Love, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Alexander, Foxcatcher (for which he was nominated for an Oscar), Beautiful Boy, Welcome to Marwen, and Irresistible. He co-starred in Tomorrow Night, Stories USA, Hope Springs, Over the Hedge, Horton Hears a Who, Vice, The Big Short, Battle of the Sexes, Café Society, Anchorman, and Freeheld. He starred on The Office from 2005 to 2011 (for which he wrote two episodes). He starred in Space Force and Rooster. He co-starred on The Patient and The Four Seasons. He made his Broadway debut as the lead in Uncle Vanya in 2024. He co-created the series Angie Tribeca. He owns and operates the Marshfield Hills General Store in Marshfield, Massachusetts.