The Crawling Ear: Ringo Starr’s fan mail

Well, I suppose by now you’ve all heard the big news – Ringo Starr doesn’t want to receive any more fan mail.   Quoteth everyone’s least favorite Beatle, “Nothing will be signed after the 20th of October…if that is the date on the envelope, it’s gonna be tossed.”

Ringo says he makes this announcement with peace and love, but I can read between the lines.   That son of a bitch is dying.   Specifically, he’s dying on October 21st.   Now, whether this means Ringo will take his own life or expire from a predetermined fatal ailment, I don’t know.   I’m not that good at reading between the lines.   However, I can assure you Ringo Starr is the Grim Reaper’s next major appointment.   Let me be the first to mourn the bearded Liverpool wonder and look back at his impressive career:

7/7/40: Ringo is born and given the Christian name Richard Starkey.   He casts off this moniker sometime during his first week breathing oxygen with the now-familiar chant, “Ringo forever! My parents’ stultifying, bourgeoisie ideas never!”

16/8/62: Ringo affirms his place in the Beatles (and rock history) by eating the band’s original drummer Pete Best.   The resourceful Starr, who spent two weeks digesting his percussive adversary, later hires his younger brother Skip to portray Best on game shows and in documentaries.

17/3/72: “Back Off Boogaloo,” Ringo’s most successful solo single, is released.   Canada and Uruguay both adopt it immediately as their new national anthems.   Urban legend claims the missing eighteen minute gap in the Watergate tapes captures Richard Nixon attempting to sing his own version of the song.

9/12/85: The live action version of Alice in Wonderland hits cinema screens.   Ringo’s turn as the Mock Turtle is praised as “hyper sexual” and “intensely disgusting” by fellow cast member Ernest Borgnine.   The two would settle their differences the following March at the first ever Wrestlemania (Borgnine won the steel cage match after whacking Ringo with three stacked folding chairs).

6/5/90: Ringo is fired from his stint as the Conductor on “Shining Time Station” after showing up to the set high on peyote and speaking only in Al Bundy quotes.

3/1/06: Ringo accepts an invitation to play bass for Van Halen on their reunion tour with David Lee Roth.   He is fired before the tour even starts for aggressively hitting on all of Eddie Van Halen’s house plants.

15/1/07: In the most controversial move of his career, Ringo posts a video on Youtube in which he sets fire to a box containing the cure for AIDS, the only known copy of London After Midnight, and Paul McCartney’s entire wardrobe.   When pressed for an explanation, the drummer claimed he was responding to a dare from Mike Tyson.

It’s been a hell of a ride, Ringo.   Thanks for the memories.   Say hi to the dead Gibb brother for me!

Check out the Crawling Ear every Wednesday at Den Of Geek. The last Crawling Ear can be found here.