Jello Biafra

            I didn’t get to bed until after 2:00 on Friday and it took quite a while to get any sleep, mostly because I’d dozed off at the computer as usual before bed. 

            After yoga I finished revising my translation of “Allons z'enfants” (Be All You Can Be) by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it in English. 

            I worked out the chords for two-thirds of the first variation of the third verse of “Flagrant délire” (Flagrant Delirium) by Serge Gainsbourg as alternated by the chorus at the end. I don’t think the second variation has different chords so I should be done on Saturday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the last of four sessions. Tomorrow I’ll begin two sessions with my electric guitars. 

            I weighed 87.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I sanded the top and the inside edge of the bathroom door. I then sanded a fifth of the bathroom side of the door. I might have all the sanding done on Tuesday. 

            While working I listened to some of The Dead Kennedys early recordings. I saw them at the Masonic Temple in 1981. I remember Jello Biafro moved extremely fast on stage. I remember his song “Too Drunk to Fuck” and “Nazi Punks Fuck Off”. I remember him saying to the audience, “You guys call yourself punks but you sit on the edge of the stage like it’s a fuckin Grateful Dead concert”. 

            Jello says he first became attracted to rock and roll when he was seven and his parents accidentally turned on a rock and roll radio station. He said Joey Ramone inspired him to become a singer. The Dead Kennedys formed after he answered an ad from guitarist East Bay Ray looking to start a punk band. Jello sang his songs into a tape recorder and the band learned them. Their first song was called “California Eber Alles” about Governor Jerry Brown. Their first album was Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, including the hit “Holiday in Cambodia”. He later recorded with Canadian punk band DOA and also recorded solo spoken word albums. He ran for mayor of San Francisco and promised to make businessmen wear clown suits within city limits. He came in fourth in a field of ten. He ran for the Green Party presidential nomination with a death row inmate as his running mate. He was beaten by Ralph Nader and then became a supporter of Nader. 

            I weighed 87 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 87.55 kilos at 18:00. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Vomit of the Star Eater” from September 25 to 27. In all of those sessions I played my Martin acoustic guitar. On September 25 the take at 11: 45 wasn’t bad but I said “their” instead of “his” in the second chorus. On September 26 the take at 16:30 was okay. On September 27 the take at 28:30 was okay but there were a couple of wrong chords. 

            I managed to get almost half an hour of practice playing “Paranoiac Utopia” but still haven’t fully nailed down the chords. I need to spend more time on it each day since I’ve only got sixteen days before my book launch and I want to also learn “Memo to the Heart of Insecurity” at least and practice “The Next State of Grace”. 

            I had a potato with gravy and two chicken drumsticks while watching episodes 27 and 28 of The Beatles cartoon series. These are also season 2, episodes 1 and 2. The producers changed the intro and mixed real photos of the Beatles with more colourful animation. John, Paul and Ringo all have moustaches in the photos from this 1966 period but not in the actual cartoons. There is now a theme song, which is “And Your Bird Can Sing” from the album Revolver. It was written mostly by John. The Beatles have basically the same look as in the first season but the guitarists sometimes do little dances while playing, Ringo looks happier and the backgrounds are more complex and colourful. 

            In story 1 of episode 27, The Beatles arrive at a Gigantic Studios movie set where a leading lady is throwing out an actor named Lips Lovely (that was clearly modeled after Marlon Brando) because he can’t kiss anymore. He says he’s worn out from all the kissing he has to do. Paul tells him he has the greatest job in the world and so Lips grabs him and puts him in front of the actress and tells him to kiss her. She kisses Paul and he immediately gets hit over the head by an actor playing the gangster boyfriend of the actress. She wants him to keep kissing and meanwhile the Beatles play Eight Days a Week”, which was written by John and Paul but based on an idea by Paul. The phrase “eight days a week” was based on something that Ringo said in conversation. In the cartoon Paul is being chased by the actress while both are being chased by the gangster-actor. In the end Lips returns, saying his kisser is cured. The actress wants to reward Paul with a kiss but he runs away. 

            The singalong set has changed to a music room with a piano. Ringo is still the set designer because he’s studying “inferior decorating” and his choices are still based on puns and they are still disastrous. The first singalong is to “Run For Your Life” from the album Rubber Soul. The line “I’d rather see you dead little girl than to catch you with another man” was borrowed from the 1954 song “Baby Let’s Play House” by Arthur Gunter. The second singalong is “Girl”, which is also from Rubber Soul, and was written by John. 

            In story 2 of episode 27, The Beatles are riding a camel across the Sahara desert in Egypt. They are looking for a place to practice and see a pyramid. Ringo sits down on a cactus but it’s the kind with arms one would see in the Americas although there are types of cactus in the Sahara. Ringo runs in pain into the pyramid and encounters a ghost that takes over his body displacing Ringo so that he becomes a ghost. Ringo is visible but transparent and the other Beatles run from him as the song “I’m Looking Through You” is playing. It was written by Paul about his relationship with Jane Asher. Ringo also plays Hammond organ on this track. The figures on the walls of the pyramid are dancing to the song. In Ringo’s body the ghost gets trampled by the camel but he also seems generally unsatisfied with Ringo’s body and gives it back to him. He leaves the body and points to it, saying “I didn’t wait 5000 years to walk around in that”. He does however want one of the bodies of the other Beatles and in the end he’s chasing them. 

            In story 1 of episode 28, The Beatles are in Paris and follow a model to a fashion show. While they are there an infamous fashion bandit Jacques le Zipper steals all of the designs. Paul chases him up the Eiffel Tower but Jacques has a blowtorch and Paul needs help. The Beatles play “Help”. Paul eventually accidentally gets the upper hand and retrieves the designs, though both he and Jacques fall from the tower but the Beatles catch Paul in a net. Before the first singalong, after setting fire to the set Ringo asks George if he’d rather do “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”. 

           The first singalong is to “The Night Before”, which was mostly written by Paul. The second singalong is to “Day Tripper”, which was written mostly by John for the Rubber Soul album. It was about weekend hippies. 

            In story 2 of episode 28, The Beatles are in Hollywood and George is acting superstitious and not stepping on cracks. He says all Hollywood stars are superstitious and go to fortune tellers. A man named The Lucky Wizard is listening and tries to manipulate events so George will follow him. He dangles a large cement block over George and then cuts the rope. Then he runs down and saves George just in time so he will trust his predictions but it doesn’t work. Lucky tries to cause accidents that keep backfiring. Ringo thinks Lucky is a suspicious character. Lucky uses magic to trap the Beatles in his crystal ball. They play “We Can Work It Out”, which was written by both John and Paul. The wizard goes inside the crystal ball to harass them but his spells backfire and he ends up trapped in his own crystal ball.