Jack Mendelsohn

            On Tuesday just after 2:00 I went to bed with a sore neck. It’s been sore for the last few days at the end of each day. I couldn’t lie on my left side as usual or even on my back with my head on the pillow. I took the pillow away and lay flat for several minutes, sometimes doing neck rolls. At 3:00 I was able to go back on the pillow on my left side with no pain. 

            After yoga I revised my translation of the ninth verse of “Allons z'enfants” (Be All You Can Be) by Boris Vian. 

            I worked out the chords for the first verse and half of the second verse of “Flagrant délire” (Flagrant Delirium) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I turned the new humidifier on for the first time since Saturday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of four sessions. 

            I weighed 87.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            I sanded a bit more of the kitchen side of the inside of the bathroom door frame. There are only two sides of the inside of the kitchen side left to sand and then I’ll do the bathroom side of the door itself. 

            I weighed 86.85 kilos before lunch, which is the least I’ve weighed in the early afternoon since last Tuesday. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown. I stopped at Metro in the Annex to take advantage of the sale on green grapes but there was only one bag left. I was supposed to get $3 back but the cashier only gave a toonie. She thought for sure she’d given me a loonie too but there was none in my pocket. She had to go and asks somebody before giving me my loonie. I turned my new flashers on and also put on a second scarf before continuing my ride. My leather gloves were still wet from yesterday’s rain so they weren’t very warm. I had my winter gloves in my backpack but didn’t bother putting them on until I got to the Metro in Parkdale. I bought another four bags of green grapes. The cashier asked how I’d like to pay as they always do at Metro and I said, “I’ll give you a picture of my girlfriend” then gave her a $20. 

            I weighed 87.25 kilos at 18:15. 

            My Honeywell humidifier has been running all day but the humidity is below 50 in the bedroom. That’s not bad but I expected it to stay between 50 and 55. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:10. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Vomit of the Star Eater” from September 14 to 17. On September 14 and 17 I played it on my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar. On September 14 the take at 19:30 wasn’t horrible. On September 17 the take at 16:00 didn’t sound too bad but there were some off chords. On September 15 and 16 I played it on my Martin Road Series acoustic guitar. On September 15 the take at 7:00 was okay but with maybe one slightly wrong chord. On September 16 the take at 16:15 was okay but I hit a few slightly wrong chords. 

            I spent about half an hour working on re-learning the chords for “Paranoiac Utopia”, with mostly the chorus giving me trouble. I’m making progress but it’s very slow and there are only 19 days until my book launch. Once this song is learned I’ll have two songs to perform because I already know “The Next State of Grace” but I want to learn at least one more. 

            I had a small potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching episodes 21 and 22 of The Beatles cartoon series. 

            In story 1 of episode 21, The Beatles are on a fishing trip and are lost at a crossroads. They all disagree as to which way they should go and so they split in four directions. Ringo goes north and comes across a Romani camp where a fortune teller informs the queen Ringola that her future husband is coming down the road. She grabs Ringo and says they must prepare for the wedding. He tries to get away but a big Romani man stops him. He keeps trying to escape while the song “What You’re Doing” is playing. It was written and sung by Paul with backup vocals by John and George. The Beatles didn’t really like it so they never performed it live and neither did Paul in any of his solo live performances. Meanwhile the other Beatles return to the crossroad and realize that Ringo went the right way and so they follow the northern path where they find the Romani camp and see Ringo’s predicament. The wedding ceremony is almost complete when George shows up in drag and declares that Ringo is already married to her. Then the Romani man is attracted to George and Ringola is attracted to Paul and so all the Beatles are running and being chased. 

            The first singalong is to “Dizzy Miss Lizzy”. The second singalong is to “All My Loving”, which was written and sung by Paul with backing vocals by John and George. He said it was the first and one of the few songs for which he wrote the lyrics first. 

            In story 2 of episode 21, the Beatles have just spent a week doing sold out shows in New York and they are paid in cash on a Sunday when all the banks are closed. They sew the money inside Ringo’s jacket then go to Coney Island. They don’t want to lose Ringo and so they go together into the fun house. They almost lose him when they see him sitting on a clown’s lap because he thinks he’s Santa Clause. They get separated in the dark and Ringo leaves the fun house alone when he slides down a ramp. Then he sees a sinister looking man hanging out and thinks he’s after the money so he runs to the wax museum while John and Paul are next to the sinister guy and singing “Money”, which was written by Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford. It was recorded by Barret Strong and in 1960 became the first Motown hit. The sinister guy keeps chasing Ringo into the haunted house while John and Paul play and sing. Ringo tries to escape on the merry go round and pulls a switch to make it go fast but it spins so much that all the money flies out. Then the sinister figure takes off his disguise and it’s George. Ringo says the money is gone but John says he sewed the real money into his own jacket and gave Ringo stage money but when he takes it out we see that he actually kept the stage money and it was the real money that was lost. I fell asleep on the couch for about an hour after the first show. 

            In story 1 of episode 22, the Beatles come to be the honoured guests in a Swiss village in the Alps. The villagers have made a flag for them with their pictures on it. The Beatles are expected to plant the flag on top of the very high local mountain with a dog named Gunther as their guide. The Beatles are tied to a line attached to Gunther as they go up the mountain. They don’t want to do this and decide to just throw the flag away and say it was lost but when they do Gunther fetches it, almost sending the Beatles off a cliff. They climb while the Beatles sing the German version of “I Want to Hold Your Hand”: Komm, gib mir deine Hand (literally “Come Give Me Your Hand”). Camillo Felgen wrote the translation. There was also a German version of “I Love You” and they were both hits in German speaking countries but after that the Beatles refused to do any more other language versions of their songs. Some say this helped spread the use of English throughout the world. The Beatles plant the flag at the top but then roll down the mountain together in a big snowball. But in the end Gunther fetches the flag back down from the top. 

            The first singalong is to “Bad Boy”, which was written and released by Larry Williams in 1958 but was not a hit. It was however a popular cover number for British bands like The Beatles. The Beatles version was sung by John. The second singalong is to “Tell Me Why”, which was written and sung by John, with harmonies by Paul. 

            In story 2, of episode 22 The Beatles are on a cruise ship and walking on deck on a very foggy night. Ringo says they should visit the mysterious passenger because every ship has one. They check the manifest and indeed he is listed as “Mysterious Passenger” in cabin 13. They look through a window and see him sharpening a knife. Then they see a beautiful girl in a veil and they think she is in danger so they burst in. She takes off her veil and she’s not beautiful after all. She starts chasing them for a kiss. It turns out that she is the assistant of Hakim the knife thrower. He sees her as the most beautiful girl in the world and refuses to let them steal her away. He thinks that she loves them now and so he starts throwing knives at them. The try to convince Hakim that she loves him and sing “She Loves You”, which was written by both John and Paul. It was their first North American hit. The phrase “Yeah Yeah yeah” became iconic and symbolic of the British invasion. It spawned the “Ye-Ye” music genre in France. 

            Jack Mendelsohn was an uncredited writer for both of these episodes. He wrote and drew the comic strip Jacky’s Diary as if he were a little boy and it ran in Sunday newspapers from 1959 to 1961. His first TV script was for Beetle Bailey in 1963. He wrote scripts for Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, The Carol Burnett Show, Three’s Company, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and some of Yellow Submarine to name a few. He also wrote for the humour magazine Panic. He was nominated for an Emmy for one of his scripts but I don’t know which one.