Lainie Kazan

            On Tuesday after midnight I put down some more two-sided carpet tape along the edges of my mattress where the previous tape had gotten less sticky. I went to bed at 1:30 and slept until 3:30 when I got up to pee. It’s around that time that the bedbugs normally start sucking on my body and I felt some had gotten across the tape but not as many as the night before. I was able to get back to sleep until 5:00 when the alarm went off. After yoga all the bedbugs I found were trapped on the tape. 

            I worked out the chords for the chorus of “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” (Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anybody) by Boris Vian. I think the second verse and second chorus should have the same chords, and so on. 

            I downloaded the YouTube video of Jacques Dutronc singing “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. I then uploaded the MP4 file to Turboscribe and got a transcript. I copied that into my 1974 Gainsbourg document but had to copy it out manually because the transcript was pasted in boxes. Sometimes one can copy text out of the boxes and paste it as normal text but not this time. I copied about half the song and I’ll finish it tomorrow. Then I’ll find out if it’s accurate. 

            I weighed 90.6 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since August 12. 

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

            Around midday went over to Home Hardware and bought two more rolls of two-sided carpet tape. I put some more along one edge of my mattress. 

            I weighed 92.05 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back stopped at Freshco where I bought five bags of green grapes and a basket of Canadian nectarines. I did a price match on the grapes for $4.37 a kilo and Priscilla gave me a price match of $4.98 a basket on the nectarines. The Freshco price was $6.99 a basket. 

            I weighed 91.1 kilos at 18:20. That’s the kindest I’ve been to the scale in the evening since July 28.

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

            I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching two videos about the Question and Answer segment of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            Someone gave Carol a souvenir from the Queen Mary and she didn’t realize he was talking about the cruise ship while she thought it was a place where they have female impersonators. 

            Lainie Kazan says Carol was born to improvise. She was like a jazz singer. 

            One time two young men in the audience turned out to be the sons of Carol’s childhood best friend Ila May Sills, with whom she used to go to movies and re-enact them afterward. 

            Jane Lynch says Carol made her audience feel like they were her best friends. 

            Lainie Kazan went to high school in Brooklyn with Barbara Streisand. She studied drama at HB Studio in Greenwich Village. Her acting teacher Ann Italiano became Ann Bancroft. She studied at Hofstra University and acted in school musicals written and directed by classmate Francis Ford Coppola. 

            Lainie made her Broadway debut in The Happiest Girl in the World in 1961. 

            She made her TV debut on Car 54 Where Are You? in 1962. 

            She made her film debut in Dayton’s Devils in 1969. 

            She co-starred in Lady in Cement, One From the Heart, Lust in the Dust, The Journey of Natty Gann, The Delta Force, Harry and the Hendersons, Beaches, 29th Street, The Associate, The Big Hit, What’s Cooking?, A Good Night to Die, Gigli, Bratz, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Expecting Mary, Pearly Gates, Tango Shalom, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 1, 2, and 3.

            She starred in Red Riding Hood and Oy Vey My Son is Gay. 

            She guest starred on The Dean Martin Show 26 times, The Bobby Vinton Show 19 times, and The Paper Chase 15 times. 

            She posed nude for the October, 1970 issue of Playboy. Those photos inspired the look of Jack Kirby’s DC Comics character Big Barda. She formed a business partnership of the jazz venues Lainie’s Room East and Lainie’s Room West with Hugh Hefner. 

            She taught theatre at Hofstra University and UCLA. 

            She was arrested for shoplifting at a supermarket in 2017. 

            She says Jerry Lewis sexually harassed her.