This morning I had breakfast at this place downtown called NicoBella's. It's a nice joint with jazz on the stereo and fauvist-looking paintings on the wall. Another thing I noticed on the wall was a signed poster of Ringo from one of the All-Starr band tours.
As the owner refilled my coffee I told him I liked the poster. There turned out to be a story behind it. He was in the middle of getting the restaurant ready to open, a massive amount of work including construction, licenses, etc. His friend called him up and said he was with Ringo. He goes, "Ringo who?" His buddy says, "Ringo, one of the few surviving Beatles." He figures this for ballbusting and says, "Eddie I don't have time for this." His friend's got Ringo talking in the background but it still doesn't sink in. The friend goes, "Well, do you want anything?" "If it's Ringo, get an autograph for me."
He got it, obviously. Later his friend told him that Ringo said he was one of the few people who ever hung up on him. I said, "You and John Lennon." On reflection, he had some friction with Paul, too, around the time of the breakup.
Really, for someone who comes from humble beginnings, it must be oddly gratifying to become such a big deal people won't believe you are who you are.
As the owner refilled my coffee I told him I liked the poster. There turned out to be a story behind it. He was in the middle of getting the restaurant ready to open, a massive amount of work including construction, licenses, etc. His friend called him up and said he was with Ringo. He goes, "Ringo who?" His buddy says, "Ringo, one of the few surviving Beatles." He figures this for ballbusting and says, "Eddie I don't have time for this." His friend's got Ringo talking in the background but it still doesn't sink in. The friend goes, "Well, do you want anything?" "If it's Ringo, get an autograph for me."
He got it, obviously. Later his friend told him that Ringo said he was one of the few people who ever hung up on him. I said, "You and John Lennon." On reflection, he had some friction with Paul, too, around the time of the breakup.
Really, for someone who comes from humble beginnings, it must be oddly gratifying to become such a big deal people won't believe you are who you are.
3 comments:
always loved this song (&, for whatever reason, have always remembered that ringo & barbara first met during the making of this immortal classic...
very cool story regarding how the autographed photo was obtained. i think ringo (&, to a lesser extent, george) both benefited greatly by being somewhat in the shadows of the massive egos known as lennon/mccartney. it allowed them both to remain a little more down to earth, & under much less pressure. they both, to a degree, were able to just sort of sit back, enjoy the ride, & maybe even occasionally smell the flowers...
as demonstrated by the morphing membership list of the 'all-starr band', ringo was/is something of a classic 'musician's musician', & a pretty beloved figure. it's always been said of him that what he lacked in talent he made up for in heart (which, to my mind, is about as nice a compliment as an artist might ever wish to receive)...
oops! that second link was supposed to go here...
Ah, Caveman. I remember seeing it and I knew that both Starr and Bach were in it - with Shelley Long as an unlikely femme fatale - but I didn't know that's where they'd met. A movie that openly goofy that makes no bones about having cheap FX is truly "the kind they don't make anymore." (Warcraft looks like it has pretty bad visuals, but I don't think it's intentional.)
Good point about Ringo and George relative to the Big Two. John, by his own account, spent the largest part of his Beatles years in self-medicated shell shock. (He also thought he was fat, which seems vaguely anorexic.) And while Paul enjoyed fame and what it brought him, I wouldn't really call it stopping to smell the roses.
It shows how unique the Beatles were if Ringo was their least talented member, because he's almost certainly the most influential rock drummer. You can easily make a case for Keith Moon or John Bonham being better, but they couldn't have come before him. That is an impressive lineup for the All-Starr band. Most of The Band seems to have played with him. Not Robbie, but some of the others might have boycotted if he were there.
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