Dennis Marks

            I revised my translation of the eighth verse of “Allons z'enfants” (Be All You Can Be) by Boris Vian. I finished memorizing “Flagrant délire” (Flagrant Delerium) by Serge Gainsbourg. I searched for the chords but all that was posted was the tablature without the lyrics or the named chords. I worked them out for the intro and the first chord of the vocal. I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice and it was a pretty good session. I put a recharged battery into my Boss FS-6 foot switch. I figured out a way to play “Like a Boomerang” with a firmer E flat chord. The song jumps from C to E flat but I’d been using a non-barred C chord, which is way down the neck and jumping from there to the high part with a barred E on the 11th fret but that doesn’t hold as well. But I realized I can play a C with a barred E chord on the 8th fret and then move up to form the E flat more easily. I weighed 88 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since October 30. I weighed 88.35 kilos before lunch. That’s the highest it’s been since October 13. In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Bloor and Avenue Road to turn on my back flasher but it didn’t work. I took it apart to see if it wasn’t connecting somewhere and I could make it flash when it was stripped down but couldn’t make it hold. That’s frustrating because it was fresh and worked yesterday. It started raining so I turned around and headed home. Between Spadina and Bathurst on Bloor there was an ice cold rain storm and I got soaked. It’s worse riding after dark in the rain because the lights shining off the puddles are disorienting and one doesn’t know where the bumps are underneath. The storm subsided when I went south on Bathurst but it was still raining until Queen. When I got back to Parkdale I went straight to Metro Cycle to buy a new flasher. The owner talked me into buying a set of USB rechargeable Evo Nightbright flashers for $90. When I got home I tried putting them on but I couldn’t get the red one to flash. It said on the package to double click but that didn’t work and the rubber button came off. I took it back to Metro and both the owner and his repairman had no problem double clicking to make it work. I finally figured out that it was a matter of double clicking more quickly. The owner told me I’m the first person he’s seen whose had a problem and I asked if he wanted my autograph. I weighed 87.8 kilos at 18:30. I was caught up on my journal at 19:30. I reviewed the videos of my song practice performances of “Vomit of the Star Eater” from September 10 to 13. From September 10 to 12 I played it on my Martin acoustic guitar. On September 10 the take at 12:15 was okay for a while but I fumbled during the second and third verses. On September 11 the take at 16:30 was okay though I fumbled slightly in a couple of places. On September 12 the take at 12:45 was okay. On September 13 I played it on my Gibson electric guitar and the take at 23:00 was okay. I only had about ten minutes before supper to practice playing “Paranoiac Utopia” and so I wasn’t able to conquer the chorus. I grilled ten chicken drumsticks and had two with a potato and gravy while watching episodes 19 and 20 of The Beatles cartoon series. In story 1 of episode 19, George is on a beach in Hawaii and is feeling intimidated by all of the muscle men walking by. He tries to tear out the coupon for a body building course from a magazine but doesn’t have the strength. A muscleman knocks him over so George catches the jock’s foot between the strings of his guitar. The jock challenges him to a surf battle in one week. One of the beach girls tells George the man is Surf Wolf, the toughest surfboard fighter in Hawaii. She gives George surfing lessons. During the contest Surf Wolf puts shark food on George’s board and so it gets partially eaten. George throws instant starch at Surf Wolf and so he becomes paralyzed and George wins. The first singalong is to “Please Mr. Postman” originally a hit for The Marvelettes. The second singalong is to “I Saw Her Standing There”, which was written by both John and Paul but conceived by Paul and was the opening track on their debut album. It was sung by Paul with vocal harmonies by John. In story 2 the Beatles are on a beach in California where a Mr. Hollywood contest is being held. A lot of musclemen with novelty talents are competing and so the Beatles perform “Boys” by Luther Dixon and Wes Ferrell, which was a hit for The Shirelles in 1960. The Beatles version was sung by Ringo quite impressively with all three other Beatles singing backup. It was his first recording as a lead vocalist. In the early live performances their previous drummer, Pete Best sang the song. But Ringo also previously sang the song when he was the drummer for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. George wins the Mr. Hollywood contest. In story 1 of episode 20, The Beatles are in Switzerland ice skating outdoors. John and Paul are experts while George and Ringo are holding onto each other to keep from falling down. As a joke John and Paul enter George in an ice race contest and he is partnered with a plus size Swiss girl named Lizzy in an ice boat sailing race while the song “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” is being played with John on lead vocal. It was written and recorded by Larry Williams in 1958. George and Lizzie accidentally win the race after much slapstick fumbling on George’s part. The first singalong is to “Ticket to Ride”, which was written mostly by John. John said that a ticket to ride represented the card that Hamburg sex workers received to show they were free of STDs. The song was the Beatles first break from conventional rock and roll. The second singalong is to “From Me to You”, which was written by both John and Paul. In story 2 of episode 20, The Beatles are in Madrid. They go into a club where two flamenco dancers Rosita and Jose are performing. John has sore feet from walking and takes off his boot but doesn’t realize someone has accidentally flicked cigar ash into it. When he puts it back on he begins to jump around so quickly that it looks like a very impressive flamenco dance and so the audience is clapping. The female dancer falls for him and so the male dancer challenges John to a duel with swords. Paul tries to save John during the duel by singing “I Saw Her Standing There”. Somehow John is a better fencer and wins, then he puts a bull’s head on the dancer and acting like a matador beats him as well. But then Rosita punches John for beating her poor Jose. They all part as friends but then Rosita screams because she sees a cockroach. Paul jumps on it several times and it looks like flamenco dancing and so Rosita is in love with him and Jose wants to duel with Paul. Dennis Marks was an uncredited co-writer on both of these episodes and in fact on all 39 episodes of the series. He started in a song writing team with Alan Friedman and their first song appeared in the off Broadway review Fallout. He was hired by King Features Syndicate to turn comic strips into short animated film scripts, starting with Barney Google and then Beetle Bailey. He was hired as a writer for The Jackie Gleason Show. His first TV screenplay was for Pippi Longstocking in 1958. He then got the job of writing screenplays for The Beatles cartoon series. He wrote for the Batman-Superman Hour and the Aquaman animated series. He wrote half of the 100 Batfink screenplays. He moved to LA and wrote for Josie and the Pussycats among other shows. He wrote for the 1981 Spiderman animated series, Spiderman and his Amazing Friends, and The Incredible Hulk. He also did voices, including The Green Goblin. He wrote for the Transformers. He wrote the script for The Jetsons movie and Tom and Jerry the movie.