Dianne Jackson

            On Wednesday morning I memorized the second verse of “Au charme non plus” (The Charm is Gone) by Serge Gainsbourg and that’s half the song. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice and after about an hour the plumbers arrived. 

            It took them about half an hour to remove the obstruction and luckily it wasn’t further than the ten meters their snake could reach because that would have required a different and more expensive machine. They showed me a picture of the black guck on the snake and said that the problem is that the kitchen stack is rusted and it’s catching matter that would otherwise flow freely. So because of that the problem will occur again. The ultimate solution would be for my landlord to replace the stack but that would cost a few thousand dollars and involve cutting open the walls, which I doubt Raja would be willing to do. He gave me a tip to keep the pipe as clean as possible and to prevent having to snake it again too soon. He said I should once a week fill both kitchen sinks halfway with hot water and then let it go. That will flush the pipes. He says he does it at home and doesn’t even worry about putting grease down the drain. After tax it cost me $316 but I think it was worth it to avoid the hassle of waiting for my landlord and dealing with his obnoxious accusations. It was gratifying to get a confirmation that I am not the cause of the problem. 

            I asked if it was normal for them to work in pairs and learned that one of them is an apprentice. He needs 9000 hours in the field to graduate and that will take about five years. 

            I weighed 87 kilos before a late breakfast at 11:30, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning in a week. 

            I weighed 87.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Metro in Parkdale on my way home. I bought five bags of grapes and two bananas.

            I weighed 86.75 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:36. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Vomit of the Star Eater” from October 11 to 14. On all of those days I played it on my Martin acoustic guitar. On October 11 the take at 11:45 was okay. On October 12 somehow part A of that day’s video is corrupted and couldn’t be played even though I viewed it before a few days ago. On October 13 the take at 14:45 was okay. On October 14 the take at 11:30 wasn’t bad. 

            I didn’t have time to practice for my performance at my book launch on December 1. I only have ten days of rehearsals left before the event. 

            I made pizza on multigrain sandwich bread with Italian sausage pasta sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 3, episodes 4 and 5 of The Beatles cartoon series. 

            In story 1 of episode 4, The Beatles are at the Department of Internal revenue paying their taxes. John is on top of a truckload of money tossing bundles of bills and bags of coins to George, who tosses them to Paul, who tosses them to Ringo, who throws them in the door of the tax office. Then everybody gets hit in the head with money except for John who falls off the truck. While unconscious they all dream together of being back in the time of Robin Hood. Robin knows Ringo who shows him his tax notice. Robin speaks in “these” and “thous” while Little John uses jive talk like a Beatnik. He says, “Maintain your cool Ringo baby, we’ll get the bread.” They show up for an archery contest but it’s a trap set by the Sheriff of Nottingham. While taxes are being collected and while the sheriff is chasing Robin and his men, The Beatles play “I’m the Taxman”, which was written by George with some help from John. It was a response to the 95% supertax imposed on The Beatles by Harold Wilson’s Labour government. It was also a protest against using money taken from The Beatles to manufacture military weapons. They get hit on the head again and wind up back in their present. 

            The first singalong is to “Got to Get You Into My Life”. The second singalong is to “Here There and Everywhere”, which was written by Paul. 

            In story 2 of episode 4, The Beatles come across some children teasing an elderly woman named Eleonor Rigby and calling her a witch. The Beatles chauffeur James tells the children that Rigby is just lonely and shy. The Beatles sing “Eleonor Rigby” for the children, which inspires them to be kind to Rigby and she is transformed and shown happy and in colour. The Beatles play “I Feel Fine” at a party for Rigby as she dances.

            In story 1 of episode 5, The Beatles are hiking when they come to a Stonehenge type circle of piled stones at the centre of which is a well. Ringo falls down and then so do the others to the land at the Inner World at the centre of the Earth, the architecture and costumes of which resemble that of the Incas. They enter a statue and through its eye holes they can see the people worshipping it outside. When they speak to the people the natives are frightened and run, all except for one girl who bows to the statue in fear. To calm them down The Beatles play “Tomorrow Never Knows”, which was written mostly by John, inspired by LSD and the book The Psychedelic Experience by Leary, Alpert and Metzner. From that book he lifted the line "Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float downstream." The title comes from one of Ringo’s off the cuff statements. It’s considered to be one of the most influential psychedelic songs ever recorded. The natives and the girl dance to the music and join in playing it on their instruments. When the natives speak it sounds like backward voices on tape and only Ringo understands. There are four girls they want the Beatles to marry and so they run back to the well to fall through it again but this time back to the surface. 

            The first singalong is to “She Said She Said”, which was written by John with help from George. It was inspired by something Peter Fonda said during an acid trip with The Byrds and the Beatles. Paul refused to take the drug and is not in the recording. The second singalong is to “Long Tall Sally”. 

            In story 2 of episode 5, The Beatles are in the recording studio and trying to play “I’ve Just Seen a Face” with Ringo on lead vocals. But Ringo has lost his voice. So the Beatles take him to the haunted house to try to scare his voice back. Ringo stumbles and knocks a mop head over his hair and also some flour so now he is all white and when he looks in the mirror he falls in love while The Beatles play “I’ve Just Seen a Face”, which was written by Paul. Ringo chases his own image. 

            The background and animation for “I’ve Just Seen a Face” was done by Dianne Jackson, whose first credits as an animator were for Yellow Submarine. She directed the animated films “The Snowman” and “Grandpa”.