By Guy D. Garcia

"Enough water has gone under the bridge for it to be a reminder of the wonderful days again, not the hell of the breakup." That is how ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, 42, explains his decision to rerecord such vintage Beatle classics as Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby and For No One as part of the sound track for the just released Give My Regards to Broad Street, a musical rock-fantasy feature film that he wrote and produced. But while it's getting better all the time for McCartney, the singer is still irked that he does not own the copyrights to most of the tunes he wrote with John Lennon, including some of those in the movie, due to a complicated legal battle they lost 15 years ago. McCartney is currently bidding to buy them back, though hardly for a song. Starting price: $30 million.

As surely as there are voters who consider politics a joke, there are candidates who consider joking good politics. Which is not why former Presidential Candidate Jesse Jackson, 43, agreed to be a guest host on Saturday Night Live last week. When some in the black community thought the comedy show a demeaning forum, Jackson acknowledged that he had "wrestled with appearing," but decided that the chance to reach a young, activist audience was too good to pass up. During rehearsals, Regular Billy Crystal told Jackson he could replace SNL Departee Eddie Murphy if he did well. "I'd rather debate Reagan," said the Democrat, who nonetheless pointed out that the now lily-white cast "is hardly a rainbow coalition."

It has been 17 years since she last starred in a film and even longer since she outgrew the perky ears of the Mouseketeers. But there will always be a place in Fantasyland for Annette Funicello, 42. "Disney is close to my heart," says Funicello, who will see viewers real soon in Lots of Luck, a movie for the Disney cable channel. The comedy casts Funicello as a suburban housewife whose family gets rich on an incredible streak of contest winning but finally "goes back to being the nice family we once were." Next for Funicello? Would you believe a reunion with her old beach-blanket beau, Frankie Avalon, 44, complete with a--that's right--Beach Party '85? But no wild bikinis, please.

Unlike his popularly elected host, he will never have to ask, "How'm I doin' ?" Besides, his mellifluous British accent would never be comfortable with such guttural nativisms. But Otumfuo Opoku Ware II, 65, the King of Ghana's Asante people, still got along fine with New York City Mayor Edward Koch, 59. To kick off his first visit to the U.S. since ascending to the "golden stool" of the Asante in 1970, the King last week donned tribal regalia and, with 'Koch happily tagging along, led a ceremonial procession up the steps of the American Museum of Natural History to celebrate the opening of "Asante Kingdom of Gold," an exhibit of some 800 gold shields, swords, necklaces and handicrafts that will be on display through March. The King, who was last in New York in 1969, observed that the city "has grown bigger, with many more buildings, and is cleaner." The mayor obviously did some whispering in his ear. --By Guy D. Garcia

On the Record

Renata Scotto, 49, opera singer whose husband Lorenzo Anselmi abandoned his work as a violinist after they were married 24 years ago: "The biggest decision a man can make is to give up his own career to dedicate himself to his wife's."

John Heckler, 57, Boston attorney who is suing his wife, Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler, for divorce: "For 30 years, all I ever did was promote her and help her and push her... They get into a high position, they begin to think they're different from everyone else."