Maya Rudolph

            On Monday after midnight I lint rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room, the top of my bed and my pillow. As usual I picked up some bedbugs from the curtain but not as many as I grabbed before lunch. There were none on the bed or the pillow. I shook out my top sheet and my comforter on the deck and went to bed around 1:35. I slept until about 4:00 and didn’t get up to pee but kind of drifted in half sleep until the alarm went off at 5:00. I felt fairly well rested during yoga, after which I checked for bedbugs. There were several stuck to the tape around my mattress and some stuck to the floor tape. A few were crawling free until I popped them. 

            I memorized the third verse of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted Change for the Toilet) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished working out the chords for the little instrumental at the end of the chorus of “La fille aux claquettes” (The Tap Dancing Girl) by Serge Gainsbourg. The chords for the second verse were almost the same as the first except it began in C. 

            I weighed 91.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune until after the very last song. 

            I weighed 92.3 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the early afternoon since September 14. 

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

            I weighed 91.8 kilos at 18:15. September 14 was the last evening when I was that rough on the scale. 

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

            I had wedge oven fries with gravy and a chicken breast while watching The Carol Burnett 50th Anniversary Special. 

            Stephen Colbert introduces the special. He says every Saturday night people didn’t go out. They stayed home and watched Carol. When the show ended in the late 70s they had to invent disco just to give people something to do on weekends. 

            Carol comes out in the same theatre where her show was taped. There are a lot of celebrities in the audience. She does questions and answers and Tom Selleck asks if she believes in petting on the first date. She says it depends on the age of the dog. Bob Barker stands and asks when she’s coming back. She seems to have mistaken him for Pat Sajak because she called him “Pat”. 

            Next Carol is sitting with Amy Poehler, Kaley Cuoco, Maya Rudolph, and Jane Lynch. Then she brings Vicki Lawrence out. We see a picture of Carol posing with Vicki after she won the Miss Fireball Contest. 

            Carol brings out Jay Leno, who comes with a gift. He says the item was made the same week that Carol’s show premiered. It’s a carburetor for a 1967 Buick Riviera. Bill Hader comes out with a bouquet of flowers for Carol. Jay says he wouldn’t be here today if not for Harvey Korman. He was performing at the Improv and Johnny Carson came but wasn’t impressed. Harvey encouraged Johnny to come back to see him again and he did. 

            Bill says when he did a Vincent Price impression on Saturday Night Live it was actually an impression of Harvey. He says Harvey had that slow burn. Bill’s favourite Harvey performance was when he did the Wolfman. He says the timing was impeccable. Jay says everybody copied Carol’s soap opera parody. 

            Carol brings out Jim Carrie who tells her she’s more than Carol Burnett to him. He says love is a vibration that finds its reflection and that’s what found the audience. He tells Carol she’s the space in which love happened (What a load of horse shit). Jim says when he was 10 years old he really wanted to be on the Carol Burnett Show. He did a lot of voices and wrote Carol a letter to ask if he could become a regular. Then he waited for her response like Jodie Foster in Contact for a signal from the universe. That is re-enacted with a ten year old actor receiving Carol’s rejection letter. He says, “Aww jeepers!” Jim pushes Carol’s hand away now. Jim says, “Just for the record I have never said ‘Jeepers’. It was 1972 and not 1932.” Carol says, “You’re on the show now.” Jim shouts, “Jeepers! We did it!” and his younger self runs into his arms. 

            Carol brings Martin Short out. Carol shows some clips of Tim. Martin says Tim is so physical in his comedy but so calm at the same time. 

            Carol is sitting with Bill, Amy, and Tracy Ellis Ross. Amy says her favourite character is Mrs. Wiggens because she was a study in silence and movement. 

            Bill asks Carol to do her Tarzan yell. She says she’ll do it but everybody else has to try it first. Bill and Maya almost get it. Tracy gives it a try. Amy’s Tarzan yell is, “Hey! Tarzan!” Steve Carell sends a video of him just yelling. 

            Carol and Vicki discuss the Family. They show a clip in which Eunice learns her daddy died in the bathroom. 

            In 11 years Bob Mackie designed around 17,000 costumes for The Carol Burnett Show. Carol introduces Bob Mackie. For Mrs. Wiggens Bob suggested that she be like those temp girls who work at CBS and sit at their desks doing their nails and watching the clock. 

            Carol is with Stephen Colbert in the Ed Sullivan Theatre where he shot the Late Show and where she was a regular of The Garry Moore Show. To reminisce about the songs that were sung on the show Carol brings out Kristen Chenowith and Bernadette Peters. Stephen has Jon Batiste play piano. Bernadette sings “All That Jazz”, which she sand on her first guest spot on Carol’s show. Carol pays tribute to her late friend Jim Nabors. Kristen sings “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” then segues into “Born Free”, and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. Stephen says his favourite male singer on Carol’s show was Steve Lawrence. They show a clip of him doing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” then Stephen continues the song but then Steve Lawrence comes out and sings it with him. They all sing a song about the Carol Burnett Show called “Saturdays at 10:00”. 

            There’s a clip of Julia Louise Dreyfuss saying that Carol’s connection with the audience made her want to get into show business. 

            Carol is sitting with Leno, Short, Amy, Lyle, Kaley, and Beth Behrs. Martin says his favourite sketch is The Dentist. Carol shows a clip in which she got back at Tim for the elephant story when she was playing an old homeless lady on a bench with Tim as an elderly man. She tells him a story about having once had two Siamese elephants joined at the trunk until one of them caught a cold, sneezed and blew both their brains out. 

            There’s a clip of Jimmy Kimmel saying when he was growing up The Carol Burnett Show was as important to his family as spaghetti, and spaghetti was very important. 

            Carol is sitting with Steve Martin in a movie theatre. 

            There’s a clip of Ellen DeGeneres wearing a parody of the curtain gown from Carol’s Gone With the Wind spoof: Went With the Wind. 

            Carol brings out Harry Connick Jr. He says the day The Carol Burnett Show premiered, September 11, 1967 was the day he was born. They sing Carol’s theme song together. Carol starts crying for some reason. Then all the other guests come out and join in. 

            Maya Rudolph is the daughter of Minnie Riperton in whose hit song “Loving You” she sings the name Maya several times at the end. Minnie died when Maya was 7 years old. Maya was friends with Gwynneth Paltrow while growing up. Maya majored in Photography at the University of California and formed the band Supersauce. After graduation she joined the band The Rentals as keyboardist and backup singer After they broke up she joined the improv troupe The Groundlings. In 2000 she joined the cast of Saturday Night Live and continued for 7 seasons. Later when guesting on the show she played Kamala Harris, for which she won an Emmy. She co-starred in the sitcom Up All Night. She starred in The Maya Rudolph Show TV special. She co-starred in Idiocracy, Grown-ups 1 and 2, Bridesmaids, Inherent Vice, Sisters, Life of the Party, Disenchanted, Away We Go, The Way Way Back, The Nut Job, McGruber, Friends with Kids, Maggie’s Plan, A Very Murray Christmas, Mr. Pig, My Entire High School Sinking, We Don’t Belong Here, The Happytime Murders, Wine Country, The Willoughbys, Big Hero 6, The Angry Birds Movie, The Emoji Movie, Luca, The Lego Movie 2, and The Mitchells vs The Machines, She co-starred with Martin Short in the variety show Maya and Marty. She starred in the sitcom Loot. She co-starred in the sitcom Big Mouth for which she won 4 Emmy Awards. She co-starred in City of Angels, Forever, and Human Resources. She made her Broadway debut in 2026 in Oh Mary!. She is in a Prince cover band called Princess.