Jackie Mason

            On Saturday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed and a couple of bedbugs turned up. I added some more carpet tape to the southeast corner of my mattress. I don’t know why that part tends to get less sticky sooner. I went to bed a little after 1:30 and woke up at around 3:15 to pee. After that I felt some bedbugs but went back to sleep until 4:45 having to pee really bad but forced myself to stay in bed until 5:00. After yoga I checked and saw quite a few bedbugs stuck to the tape but a few more crawling freely on the wall. 

            I finished memorizing “Venez donc voir” (“Come Then See”) by Boris Vian and worked out the chords for the instrumental intro. The song is not sung but I started working out chords for the speech according to the tonality so it can be sung. 

            I worked out the chords for the first three verses of “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. All that’s left is the instrumental and then one and a half verses so I should have it done tomorrow. 

            I weighed 91.45 kilos before breakfast.

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

            Around midday I rode to No Frills where all the grapes were too soft. I bought two Canadian watermelons, three packs of Canadian and Peruvian blueberries, some bananas, a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread, a loaf of seven grain sandwich bread, mouthwash, dental floss, tomato pesto, spoon sized shredded wheat, a jug of lemonade, a small container of 4% skyr, and a bag of wedge fries. 

            I weighed 92.2 kilos at 15:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since September 1. I had smoked turkey and maple mustard on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            I took a siesta at 15:30 and woke up at 16:55. After brushing my teeth it was too late for a bike ride. I went over to the liquor store and bought a six-pack of Creemore. 

            I weighed 92.25 kilos at 17:25. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:38. 

            I digitized a cassette recording of a Christian and the Lions rehearsal in a rented space with Tom Smarda on Stratocaster and backup vocals, Steve Lowe on acoustic guitar, me on vocals, and either Jim Bravo, Barzin, or Jeremy Finkelstein on drums. We did my songs "Megaphor", "Calendar Girl", "Hungry Hippunk Goes to Work", and "Me and Gravity". 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, potato wedge fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 3, episode 32 of The Garry Moore Show. But these Moore shows I’ve been watching are only 25 minutes long because the musical numbers have been edited out. 

            During the opening segment Durward Kirby comes out to tell Garry that his Aunt Mary has formed a Garry Moore Fan Club and asks if he’ll let them come out on stage to meet him. Mary comes out with three other elderly and eccentric individuals. Mary is president of the fan club and she introduces him to Vice President Patterson. Garry reaches out to shake his hand but he backs away. Mary introduces Miss Crane the secretary and Mr. Simmons the treasurer. Garry asks Mary how many members there are in the club and she says “Four”. Mr. Patterson scowls and asks Mary, “When do we go to Radio City?” Mary tells Garry that Mr. Simmons loves Garry’s singing voice but he’s nearly deaf and doesn’t know if Garry is singing right now or not. Mary tells Garry they passed a hat to get him a gift but nobody put anything in and so she thought he would at least like to have the hat. She hands him a bowler that’s too small. 

            Garry says his next guest reminds him of the social director for The Twilight Zone. Jackie Mason comes out to do his stand-up routine. Jackie says this is his third time on the show. He tells us there’s one thing in life more important than money, and that’s love. “I’m very fortunate because I love money. There’s only one thing you can get without money and that’s sick. My grandfather told me to never guard my money but guard his health. “So one day I was guarding my health and someone stole my money and it was my grandfather. He was a genius at the stock market. He bought 7-Up when it was only 6 and a Quarter. He told me to invest in copper and I lost. He told me to invest in zinc and I lost. But when he said “steal” I made a fortune. I read a book by a Columbia professor who said that one out of every three women is suffering from a lack of love. Now whenever I see three girls together I wonder which one it is. A psychiatrist told me I need to find the real me to be happy. But what if I look for the real me and find he’s even worse than me? Ten years ago if you told me to look for the real me I would have been happy to look because I couldn’t make a living. But now I’m doing good so let him look for me. The psychiatrist charged me $25 but if this isn’t the real me why should I pay him? Let him look for the real me to get the $25. For all I know the real me might be going to a different psychiatrist or maybe he’s a psychiatrist himself. Wouldn’t it be funny if my psychiatrist was the real me and he owes me $25? I told him I’ll charge him $10 and we’ll call it even. But I kept on studying and I found out that I’m Carol Burnett.” He tells the audience, “If I didn’t make you happy tonight it’s none of my business because it’s not me. Let Carol worry about it. Remember that money is not important because you can’t take it with you. Friends are more important and so that’s why when I go I’m taking my friends.” 

            Mel Tormé introduces a skit that is almost exactly the same as one that was later done on The Carol Burnett Show I assume it was written by the same writers. The main difference is that in this one Carol’s husband is played by Durward Kirby while in the later one he is played by Harvey Korman. The sketch involves an upper class couple on 5th Avenue who are about to have their apartment photographed for Home Beautiful Magazine. They say their home is exquisite because their tastes blend harmoniously but then Durward says the only thing disharmonious is the ashtray that Carol bought in Copenhagen and so he throws it out the window. What follows is them smashing each other’s things until the home is a wreck. Garry later says he doesn’t want to know about this week’s budget because they had to replace everything they smashed during rehearsal just so they could smash it all again for the show. 

            Garry says 1938’s biggest picture was Algiers. It told the story of Pepe La Mocco, a notorious jewel thief and his ill-fated love affair. It all took place in the Casbah, a walled city of mystery and intrigue. The movie introduced one of the most beautiful women in movie history, Hedy Lamarr. Carol plays Hedy playing Gaby the most beautiful woman in Europe. Someone tells her it’s not safe for her to be alone in the Casbah. She says she won’t leave until she meets Pepsi La Cola. Jackie Mason plays Pepsi and approaches her from behind. She turns, sees him, says, “Yeeuck!” and walks away. 

            Garry assembles the cast and the guests to sing the goodbye song while holding hands. Carol Haney was on this show but not in the video that I have. She must have done a dance routine.

            Jackie Mason came from a long line of rabbis. He earned a BA at City College in New York with a double major in English and Sociology. He was a cantor until the age of 25 when he was ordained as a rabbi like his three brothers. His sermons were so funny that gentiles used to come to hear them. He left after three years because somebody in the family had to make a living. He worked as a busboy in the Catskills until he broke all the dishes. They made him a lifeguard even though he couldn’t swim. They told him not to tell the guests. He made his national TV debut on The Steve Allen Show in 1962. The same year he released his first record, I’m the Greatest Comedian in the World Only Nobody Knows It Yet, which was a best seller. When he appeared on Ed Sullivan in 1964, Ed thought Jackie gave him the finger. He says he was gesturing with his index finger but he was banned from the Sullivan Show because of the misunderstanding. He sued Sullivan and later did appear on his show a few times but Mason gained a bad reputation and lost a lot of TV work. He made his Broadway debut in A Teaspoon Every Four Hours in 1969. He won a Tony, an Emmy, and Grammy for his first one man show, The World According to Me, which ran for two years. He became the first guest on The Simpsons to win an Emmy for his performance playing the father of Krusty the Clown, which he would return to do several times. He starred in The Stoolie, Caddyshack II, and One Angry Man. He performed for Queen Elizabeth in 1991. He endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 election. He doesn’t think Israel should be required to follow the world’s understanding of democracy. One of his jokes about aging is, “It’s no longer a question of staying healthy but of finding a sickness you like.”