I uploaded “Les bienfaits de la pratique” (The Benefits of Practice) by Boris Vian to my Christian’s Translations blog and published it. I posted my translation on my Boris Vian fan page and on my personal Facebook page. The next Vian song on my list is “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted Change for the Toilet). There’s audio for that one so I’ll start learning it on Saturday.
I worked out the chords for the first verse and part of the chorus of “La fille aux claquettes” (The Tap Dancing Girl) by Serge Gainsbourg. I might have the chorus done tomorrow.
I had to skip breakfast because I was scheduled for my implant surgery at the U of T School of Dentistry and so I had to start getting ready at 8:30. I left my place at 9:00. The Elm Street entrance was closed for construction and so I had to go in through the Edward Street entrance and figure out how to get up to the third floor from there. I finally found the elevator and got to the Periodontics office where I had to pay $1640. I guess the big fee will probably be for the crown when that goes on, which I assume will be between $3000 and $4000. At least that will be a few months so I can get more money in the bank from my pension payments.
Dr. Martin Lambert froze me up pretty good. I got mildly yelled at for closing my mouth while there was a pin there but I should have been told beforehand not to close my mouth because a pin was there. The assistant Isabella called the pin the CN Tower and I saw later it was because there was a part around it that looks something like the CN Tower’s observation deck. Martin drilled down and then screwed in the implant.
Some of Dr. Xia’s bone graft collapsed and so Martin had to fill the space around the implant with a new bone graft and also bury it with more bone to put it to “sleep” for a few months. The original plan without glitches would have been a four month wait before the crown goes on but now it will be six to nine months. Martin’s professor suggested that I take vitamin D to strengthen the bone. Apparently most Canadians are vitamin D deficient because it’s a sunshine vitamin. But I probably get more sun in the winter than most people as I have southern exposure and big windows. Plus I eat a lot of meat which is a rich source of D3.
Martin stitched the gum together over the bone graft. He frequently complimented Isabella for her assisting work. He said that at U of T the dentists are spoiled because the assistants are professionals. He said that in a lot of the dental schools in the States the assistants are also students and they often don’t know how to assist.
He prescribed the same things Dr. Xia prescribed after my bone graft: Amoxicillin the antibiotic to be taken three times a day for a week; Ibuprofen for pain, though I still have a full container from last time because I didn’t need it; a chlorohexidine gluconate oral rinse to be taken twice a day starting a day after surgery; and he added dexamethasone to reduce swelling with one and a half tablets to be taken the next morning, one tablet the morning after that, and half a tablet on the third morning. I’m scheduled to see Martin again for a follow up in two weeks when I assume he’ll be removing the stitches.
Before going home I went straight to Vina pharmacy and had to wait several minutes for a newbie pharmacist to fill my prescription. At first he said they didn’t have the dexamethasone but later he discovered they had it after all. They cut one of the tablets in half and put the half tablets in a separate container as if I’m too stupid to tell the difference between a whole and a half tablet. I also bought some vitamin D3 because it was the only D vitamin they had. Apparently it’s generally the most effective form.
I weighed 90.25 kilos before lunch.
I took a long siesta.
I weighed 90. 8 kilos at 17:25, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since July 24.
I was still three days behind in my journal and worked on catching up.
I had my last potato (a tiny one) with gravy and a chicken leg while watching Let’s Bump Up The Lights, a Carol Burnett Special from 2004.
Carol, Vicki, Tim, and Lyle are sitting together. Vicki tries the Tarzan yell and pretty much nails it. Both Tim and Lyle mime a silent Tarzan yell to be dubbed with Johnny Weismuller’s original Tarzan yell. Actually the Tarzan yell in his movies was engineered from recordings of Swiss yodeling, opera singing, and the cry of a camel, then some of it was played backwards. Apparently he later on learned how to do it with his own voice.
Carol says she entered a Tarzan yell contest in London once and came in third. She was the only female in the contest. Lyle asks, “What show did the winner get?”
Lyle says he and his wife took a vacation to Peru and were chopping through the Amazon jungle to visit a First Nation village when they met another tour group from the States chopping their way out. One of them recognized Lyle from The Carol Burnett Show.
Vicki says she and her daughter went to visit the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. They went into one of the wood huts to buy souvenirs. There was an old Tiwa man sitting in the dark corner with his hat down. Then he looked up at Vicki and asked, “You Mama?” He came out into the light to take pictures with her.
Lyle says even after he was on the show for a couple of weeks he’d have people calling him by name anywhere in the country. Carol says when people view television performers from home they become more familiar than movie stars. Vicki says she noticed early on that if a guest on the show was in movies they would be “Miss Hayworth” or “Mr. Stewart.” But if it was a TV star they would call them by their first name.
Carol says they were one of the few shows in the world that finished in time to go have dinner.
Vicki says of Carol she cared about the whole crew and knew if the prop man’s dog was throwing up.
Vicki says when they did the take-off on Showboat she couldn’t find her starting note. Hal Linden, who was stage trained, was staring at her as if to say, “You little twit!”
Vicki calls The Carol Burnett Show "The Emerald City" because it was unique in show business.
Vicki says she used to go home to Lyle’s place for lunch with his wife. And Lyle taught her how to do plaster of Paris sculptures. Vicki also became friends with Bob Mackie because he was one of the youngest of the staff and came from the same part of California.
Lyle says that while nobody planned to break up during a sketch, players did plan to break the other player up with what they called “savers”.
Tim says when he tricked Harvey into being on Dick Clark’s Bleepers, Bloopers, and Blunders, the race horse they brought out to sell wasn’t even their race horse but Harvey couldn’t tell. After he got punked Harvey didn’t talk to Tim for months.
Lyle says he was in the Green Room with Harvey when he got the script for Blazing Saddles. He was reading it and commenting that it would never sell.
Vickie says Bob told her he had 45 seamstresses putting together between 60 and 80 pieces a week.
Vicki says she took Carol shopping once and in a boutique she went into the dressing room with about fifteen outfits and shocked the salesperson with how lightning quick she could try on and take off clothes. She developed the skill from doing live TV.
Carol says on the Garry Moore Show she would change in the elevator with her dresser but Garry didn’t know that and ran in to also use it to change with his dresser. They just turned their backs on each other and did it with four people in a tiny elevator.
Dick Clark got his first job when he was 16 in the mail room of WRUN Radio in Ithaca New York. The station was owned by his uncle and managed by his father. He worked his way up to being a weatherman and then an announcer. He graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Business Administration. In 1952 he was working at WFIL Radio when he became a substitute host for Bob Horn’s Bandstand on the WFIL TV station. After Horn was arrested for drunk driving Clark became the permanent host. In 1957 the show got national distribution and the name was changed to American Bandstand. Clark added interviews, starting with Elvis. He introduced lip synced performances and a “rate a record” segment. The latter established the catchphrase: “It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it!” Clark mandated a dress code of skirts or dresses for the girls and coats and ties for the boys. Clark was also the first bandstand host to allow black performers on the show. The biggest names in rock and roll appeared on the show over its long run and helped to ease the TV viewing public into feeling more accepting of rock and roll. He saved the career of Connie Francis when he played her song “Who’s Sorry Now?” on his show and caused it to become a hit. In 1958 Chuck Berry made his network television debut on American Bandstand when he sang “Rock and Roll Music”. By 1959 American Bandstand was reaching an audience of 20 million. Many performers got their first national television exposure on American Bandstand, including The Supremes, The Beach Boys, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, Chubby Checker, Tina Turner, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Simon and Garfunkel, Iggy Pop, Prince, Talking Heads, and Madonna. Clark began managing artists, arranging concert tours, and hosting live sock hops. Paul Anka credited Clark with creating youth culture by showing teenagers publicly enthusing over rock and roll. In 1960 an investigation into payola found that Clark owned partial copyrights to over 150 songs, many of which were featured on his show. Nothing illegal was found on Clark’s part but he was given a choice to sell his shares or leave the show, so he sold and stayed. Clark moved the show to LA and started Dick Clark Productions. He hosted The Dick Clark Show from 1958 to 1960. He produced Where the Action Is, TV Bloopers and Practical Jokes, and So You Think You Can Dance? He hosted the game shows $10,000 Pyramid, The $100,000 Pyramid. Scattergories, The Challengers, and a male version of The View called The Other Half. He also hosted the radio shows The Dick Clark National Radio Survey, Countdown America, and Rock Roll and Remember (which was inspired by Dick’s autobiography of the same name). He owned several radio stations. He starred in Because They’re Young. He co-starred in The Young Doctors. In 1968 he co-wrote and co-starred in the movie Killers Three. He produced the film Psych-Out. In 1972 he produced In Concert. In 1972 he produced and hosted the first Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin Eve, which continued every New Year except for 1999. He created and produced The American Music Awards in 1974. He became the mentor of Ryan Seacrest, who took over New Years Rockin Eve after Clark. He’s won five Emmys and one Peabody Award. He had a chain of restaurants and was criticized in Michael Moore’s documentary Bowling for Columbine because he would hire single welfare mothers for very little pay and the son of one of his employees became a shooter at the Columbine school. Clark refused to be interviewed.
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