Ringo tired of being a Starr?

Ringo Starr posted a bizarre rant indicating he’s done signing autographs in, gadzooks, four days. “I won’t be signing anything mailed after October 20,” he says. “Don’t send it. It’s going to be tossed. I’m warning you with peace and love, I have too much to do. So no more fan mail!”

I saw this in the news and immediately had two thoughts: Ringo Starr’s busy? And he still has fans?

If a Starr like Ringo’s busy it must mean the Hollywood Squares is back on the air. He’s devolved into that kind of celebrity. And he’s not even center square worthy. Save that for someone like Ashton Kutcher or Danny Bonaduce.

Has anyone thought of asking Pete Best what he thought about poor Ringo?

Best was behind the drum kit for two years before Ringo took over. He lost out to Ringo on one of history’s most golden tickets. He could have been a Beatle. In fact, he was a Beatle. But Ringo snaked his way in doing what Ringo did best -- and I don’t mean keeping a tidy beat.

No, he was glib and charming, enough so that John, Paul and George invited him to tag along on their magical mystery tour to fabulous fame and fortune. And poor Pete went on to be the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question.

Too busy? I know he doesn’t golf, the time-consuming pastime that I’d devote my entire time to if I was wealthy and the last significant piece of work -- if you can call swinging the drumsticks work -- I’d done had been in 1969.

He may not golf, but I know a rich and famous guy who does. He’s Arnold Palmer. You want his autograph? Just ask. Ever since he became famous -- about 10 years before Richard Starkey became Ringo Starr -- he’s felt a gentlemanly obligation to devote about an hour every day to carefully signing autographs.

If you or someone you know wants his autographed picture, just send a note requesting one to him at PO Box 52, Youngstown, Pa. 15696. He’ll even pay for the return postage. Or if that’s too much trouble, just e-mail me and I’ll forward your note. Really, you ought to do it for a friend or loved one this Christmas. They’ll get a real kick out of it. The man’s a classic.

I asked Doc Giffin, Palmer’s affable assistant for 40 years, if Mr. Palmer, the CEO of an enormous business empire, is too busy to sign autographs. “Not at all. He still gets about 20 to 25 requests every day and he signs and returns every one of them.”

Palmer considers it a privilege to sign autographs for the people who’ve so ardently supported him for more than 50 years of fame that rivals and in many cases exceeds Ringo’s. And check it out (www.ArnoldPalmer.com). It’s immaculate. Surgeons who leave scars on supermodels aren’t as careful with scalpels as he is with a pen.

Palmer’s bragged that his name is nearly worthless on eBay because of the glut of autographs and pieces of memorabilia he’s signed.

I’m guessing Ringo Starr doesn’t have a Doc Giffin working for him. If he did, he would have told him something like, “Look, you’re a Beatle, but you’ll never be more than the fourth most popular Beatle out of four -- and that includes the two who’ve already died. In fact, most people consider you like the Beatle mascot. They want to meet the others. You, they’d like to dangle from their rearview mirrors.

“You’re lucky you’re rich and famous because, let’s face it, you never had the talent to make it on your own. Now, it’s not going to kill you to take maybe two hours a week to sign your name for people who’ve given you your magnificent homes around the world, your lavish lifestyle and your still-georgous Bond-girl wife.

“Now go back to your tanning bed, your cricket matches or whatever the hell else it is you do in your supposedly busy life. And here, sign this: it’s my bill for $5,000. Consider it a bargain for all the ridicule I’m saving you for not putting up that silly message.”

A convivial man stricken with "beer sickness"

I had to explain what a hangover was to Josie on Saturday and I felt marginally proud that I’ve been able to conceal them from her for eight years.

During those eight years I’ve had hundreds of punishing bouts with that self-inflicted misery. I used to think that one day the hangover would be nothing but a nasty memory for me, that I’d mature or stagnate to a point where I didn’t feel like staying out too late, laughing too loud or drinking too much.

It’s hasn’t happened yet and it doesn’t look like it’s ever going to.

I’m among the last of the relentless and unapologetically convivial people on the planet. Rare is the day or night that I don’t want to spend at least a portion of my time sipping beers or bourbons and yapping about the events of the day with jolly friends or alert strangers.

“The only reason I write stories is because nobody will pay me to lean against a bar and mumble them.” That’s what the great Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko wrote and it’s something I’ve always embraced.

Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and many of our greatest American writers were robust drinkers, too. Of course, the only thing I have in common with those historically accomplished giants is a fondness for cigars and spirits, but to the I.R.S. we’re all lumped in together as “writers” so the association, however diminishing it is to them, must stand.

Writing is a lonely business. You’re all by yourself. There’s no team. No cubicle chatter. No chummy camaraderie.

But to be a writer you need access to lively people and stories. And you get that at most any neighborhood tavern. The one I go to -- the one that’s strategically located directly below my office -- is a stew of mill workers, cops, tradesmen, lawyers, accountants, heroic veterans, Republicans, Democrats and a motley mix of deadbeats, racists and incoherent drunks who’ll test the skills of even the most polished debater.

So I like to go there for what you could call for professional reasons. Bar time provides a cerebral sort of mingling I couldn’t get if I worked above, say, a coffee shop or a place that sells shoes. Of course, there is the collateral risk that once in a while I wind up drunk, all in the line of duty.

That’s what happened Friday night on a day that started with an ambition-squashing afternoon of televised October baseball. It’s very difficult for any normally convivial person to stay up in his or her office when many of his or her buddies are downstairs quaffing beer and watching playoff baseball.

And it’s way too difficult for someone like me.

So, there I was at 4 p.m. drinking my first beer and philosophically closing the books on another work week of subpar productivity.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Val and I had planned to meet friends -- convivial folks all -- at a local restaurant. I followed the afternoon beers with cocktail bourbon, followed that with cabernet and followed that with still more Tennessee whiskey.

Had I found room for a splash or two of Ouzo or some other cordial, I’d have hit the liquid equivalent of all four major food groups.

And if you’ve ever been a convivial person, you know what happened Saturday morning. It was a hangover or as Val explained to Josie, “Daddy has the beer sickness.”

Josie jumped back as if she thought “beer sickness” could jump from me to her. So I told her all about the convivial person’s curse known as the hangover.

“Is it catchy?” she asked.

I told her no, but I’m really not so sure. I know there are many days when I wake up with beer sickness that many of my convivial buddies wake up suffering from the same symptoms. Who knows? Maybe it is contagious.

“Will you ever get another one?” she asked.

I ran through in my head the remaining schedule for the baseball playoffs. “Probably next Thursday morning,” I said.

I am, after all, a convivial person, one who is conscientious about his professional conduct.

The Religious Wrong and the bravest man in America

The last time a crowd of otherwise law-abiding citizens transformed themselves into bloodthirsty mobs the way supporters of McCain-Palin do was at the trial that led to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Now, I’m not saying McCain is Pontius Pilot or that Barack Obama is Christ, but when the crazy hyperbole gets flying it’s hard to resist joining in on the fun.

Nobody on the planet comes unhinged like the Religious Wrong. You’d think the disastrous Bush presidency would at least leave them open-minded to having someone they wrongly suspect to be a closet Muslim might be worth a try, but no. And again I’m left to wonder why a group that so vocally declares to have found one Messiah is always so restlessly seeking another.

Clearly, they haven’t found him in McCain, whose campaign is in the midst of what will be regarded as a historic meltdown. By any measure, this is one of the worst campaigns we’ve seen in the past 30 years. Just today, one of the leading conservative voices in the country (i.e. “enormous horse’s ass”) Bill Kristol urged McCain to fire his entire staff and start again.

With 22 days before the election! Yeah, great time to start all over in a campaign that’s been going on for two years.

The John McCain I’ve always admired finally resurrected himself last week when he proved he’s the second bravest man in America. He did this by standing up to his own frothing supporters to tell them that, contrary to what Palin’s been telling them, that Barack Obama’s a decent family, a proud American and that, no, we have nothing to fear with him as our president.

For this he was booed.

And now, for him, it’s too late. This election’s over. It’s destined to be won by the bravest man in America.

That’s Barack Obama.

Unlike McCain, he’s never had to duck a bullet, never gone into combat or had to crash land behind enemy lines.

But what he’s doing today is braver than anything any veteran’s done in those fearsome circumstances.

He’s standing near naked before crowds of 20,000 to 80,000 people knowing that there’s a well-armed and hate-filled fraction of America that wants him dead. We all know of bitter racists, deranged religious zealots, and Right Wing crazies -- sometimes all three in one -- and we know some of them have lethal potential.

They shout “Kill him!,” “Traitor!” and “Off with his head!” at rallies. Just today, the chairman of the Virginia GOP, Jeffrey Frederick, said he was no different than Osama bin Laden. Think that won’t egg on some deranged believer to begin diabolical plots in the belief that they’re patriotically acting with God on their side?

John Wilkes Booth, an actor with the equivalent popularity that Brad Pitt enjoys today, pulled the trigger behind Abraham Lincoln’s ear and brazenly jumped on the Ford Theater stage knowing he'd be recognized and believing he’d be hailed as a hero.

I can’t fathom the bravery of a father of two young daughters who’ll go out and stand on a stage knowing that his opposition is saying he’s dangerous, that he’s chummy with Al-Quaeda, and that their most primal fears about dark-skinned men with exotic names are more than justified.

I hope Obama wins in landslide. Then I hope he gets into the White House and plants himself so deeply into the secure bunker so that no one can hurt him or his family.

And then I hope he begins to do many great things.

Dad cheers for daughter to be a quitter

Here's something worth cheering: Me after sinking a birdie putt at Whistling Straits, 10-3-2008. Now, onto to today's cheerleader post . . .

When my daughter told me she didn’t want to go to cheerleader practice tonight because she “just didn’t feel like it,” I had to restrain myself from picking up her blue & silver pompons and shouting:

“Yea! Yea! No cheerleader practice tonight! Yea! Quit! Quit! Quit! Go kid! Leeettttt’s quit!”

I don’t know when cheerleading became a sport unto itself, but if I’d have been paying attention when it was happening I would have done everything I could to stop it.

Now parents go to the games to cheer the cheerleaders who are cheering the midget football games about which they know absolutely nothing. When one father asked his cheerleader daughter what she thought about the game, the perky 8 year old replied, “What game?”

The cheerleaders of my youth still shimmer in my hormonal memories. They were teenage girls on the bubble of womanhood. They were voluptuous. They had lucious hair. They wanted absolutely nothing to do with me.

Yet, they always lurked in my mind. I’d stare at them in biology class. I’d be thinking about them and their tight sweaters when unbidden thoughts began distracting me in algebra. I’d be delivering newspapers on my route and scheming about how I could get even one of them to notice me.

In short, as a boy in the rocky throes of puberty, I thought about them much the same way middle-aged actor Charlie Sheen apparently still does.

Now my daughter’s play acting at being one and the whole thing’s sort of disquieting. They suggestively prance around like little Jon Benet Ramseys and do provocative cheers that nearly shock the ears off my sweet white-haired mother.

The father in me is bothered by any adult-supervised activity that seems to promote any acceleration in the decline of innocence. Do they really need meddling parents monitoring their practices, careful to note any slights or taunts? And, yes, the adolescent in me is appalled that girls who are years away from their first training bras are allowed on the primal pedestals once reserved for the fair girls who were the first objects of my dawning desires.

There’s a low-grade sort of insanity involved in any school activity in which parents become engaged. We try to teach them our rules, imbue them with our ambitions and impose our rigid structures on naturally playful children who get distracted by things like frogs and bursting dandelions.

That’s why if Josie came up to me and said, “Daddy, I want to quit,” I wouldn’t try to talk her out of it. That’s the antithesis of everything they teach you in Fatherhood 101. You’re supposed to teach your children to never quit. Stick it out. Put your shoulders to the grindstone and press on.

Such teachings would be utterly hypocritical of me. Every time I’ve ever quit anything -- a tepid relationship, a boring job, a movie that got dull -- my life got immediately better.

Whenever the going got tough, I got golfing. And, surprisingly, it’s all worked out rather well.

Val says Josie enjoys cheerleading and she clearly does. And she is adorable. And unlike the cool, aloof cheerleaders of my youth, she loves me unabashedly. We hold hands as we walk to practice. We laugh and joke and just have a splendid time.

She’s given me many of the most joyful moments of my entire life.

Maybe my problem is that I finally have a cheerleader and I just can’t stand the thought that she’s out there cheering for anyone but me, as pathetic a fatherly thought as could be considered and one that provokes a raft of psychological pitfalls.

It could give a deep thinker an opportunity to wrestle for hours with big questions about lost youth, advancing mortality and the bittersweet residue of lusts unfulfilled.

What’s it mean to a guy like me?

Time to quit!

Debate analysis you won't see on TV

• Apropos of nothing, here's a picture of me and the Bronze Fonz statue in Milwaukee. Now, onto the debate analysis.

• I was surprised to see McCain’s a lefty when it comes to handwriting. I’m sure some obscure expert’s done an analysis saying some of our best/worst presidents have been lefthanders. That won’t factor into whether or not I’ll vote for him, but I just hope he’s never sits down to my right if we ever wind up together in the same cafeteria.

• Commentators immediately began focusing on the candidates’ body language. Not me. I was drawn to the body language of the captive audience. They sat mostly immobile for the first 30 minutes, but there was a monumental amount of background fidgeting during the home stretch. There were toe tappers, knee bouncers, thumb twiddlers and an entire corp of nap-jerking yawn stiflers throughout. I’d wagered with my wife that bald guy with the blue shirt in the back row was going to fall asleep. I lost.

• I believe if the country could survive eight years of the idiot Bush, it can survive anything. I’m all in for Obama, but last night left me feeling a surge of optimism knowing that one way or the other we’re going to have a president who at least knows how to pronounce simple words like “nuclear.”

• It was annoying how often grumpy Tom Brokaw kept reminding everyone that the participants had gone seconds over their agreed upon time. Neither seemed that long winded to me, and he kept cutting them off just as true debate seemed about to emerge. I’ve been to parties with nagging clock watchers like him. It’s no fun.

• I understand the rules that say the audience shouldn’t applaud, but I think it would add to the debates if they were all instructed to yell and holler any time either of the candidates said a secret word like say, “bailout,” “Main Street” or “Petraeus.” They always had secret words on Pee Wee’s Playhouse and it was always riotous good fun. Try it around your own house someday.

• Do you think people in the audience had to raise their hands and get the go ahead nod from Brokaw if they had to go to the bathroom?

• I like it when candidates -- and both of them did this -- pronounce the names “Pock-e-stan” and “Tolly-bon” instead of “Packistan” or “Toweliban.” It makes the evil doers seem less intimidating, like they are populated by Oompa Loompas, albeit ones with murderous dispositions.

• I give huge credit to the audience members for being able to stand up and ask either of the candidates a question knowing that there were maybe 60 million people watching and that many of them were like me and my wife. We didn’t listen to a word they said, but made disparaging remarks about their hair, their eyeglass frames or the way they were dressed. I wish I wasn’t like that.

• In this day of microscopic spy gizmos, did the microphones really need to be so big and clunky? They looked the amplifier anchor Roger Daltry swung around during The Who’s 1969 performance at Woodstock.

• If either of the candidates had dropped their microphone, it’s all we would have remembered. I was hoping one of them would.

• I respect John McCain’s service and think he’d have made a dandy president in 2000 when George Bush dirty tricked it out of him. But he’s starting to remind me of Grandpa Simpson.

• I was glad to see neither of them had suspicious bulges between their shoulder blades the way Bush did against John Kerry in 2004 (simply Google “Bush, bulge, debate”). To me, it’s one of the great underreported stories of the Bush era. Well, that and the reasons for going to war in Iraq.

• One of the greatest lines in debate history came when Lloyd Bensen left Dan Quayle sputtering after he’d blasted him with his great line, “Senator, I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. You’re no Jack Kennedy.” When I was doing a golf book about hole in ones, Quayle was one of the few politicians or celebrities to call me back for a chat about their ace history. We talked about golf and luck for 30 casual minutes. He was cool to me. I wonder if Jack Kennedy would have been. Who knows? When it comes to golf chat, maybe Jack Kennedy was no Dan Quayle.

• They say that 10 percent or so of the electorate is still undecided. Who are these marshmallow heads? I say we nullify their votes and get all the partisans who are stubbornly Obama together with the people who are stubbornly McCain and just let them duke it out.

Wisconsin by a foot

Every time I begin thinking the ear is the ugliest part of the human body I get a glimpse of my barefeet and am reminded the ears will always be runner ups. The terrible daily pounding taken by the feet shows. It’s hands-down the ugliest part of the body.

I think I saw the ugliest feet in my life last week on my way to Wisconsin. It was on a connecting flight from Atlanta to Milwaukee. I had the middle seat. Aisle seat seemed like a crabby guy who resented that I had to squeeze past him to the middle. That’s why I was glad window seat seemed so friendly.

The guy had a really nice smile under what looked like a Santa starter beard. I figured we’d be talking sports before take off. But that was before a truly offensive sort of take off occurred.

As the plane began to taxi, he reached down and took off his blue croks. Now, any man wearing blue croks is showing terrible judgment, but what he did next had me looking around for a parachute and the nearest emergency exit.

He reached down, slipped off the silly blue croks and crossed his leg so that his horrible barefoot was practically resting on my leg. I recoiled as if a leper had plopped down on my lap. The heel was cracked and calloused. With the slightest bit of turbulence it would have ripped multiple holes in my nice khakis. The yellow toenails resembled witches’ teeth.

Amazingly, the middle and window seats on the other side of the aisle were vacant. In violation of every FAA rule and under the scowls of the bitter and overworked flight attendants, I dove over two startled aisle passengers as if I was escaping a live grenade.

It may have been the ugliest human body part I’ve ever seen. Perhaps it was coincidence, but I’ve had trouble sleeping ever since.

Maybe the gods figured they owed me after that because I had a wonderful time in Wisconsin. They treated me and two other golf writers like kings. I played five of the golf-rich state’s best courses (Erin Hills, Whistling Straits, The Bog, Wild Rock and Grand Geneva). The dining was superb.

On the last day under perfect blue skies amidst spangled autumn trees, I played golf with two great guys at The Bog, a magnificent Arnold Palmer course where they welcomed me, a Latrobe resident on assignment to Palmer’s Kingdom magazine, as if I were Palmer himself.

I told my golf partners all about my week and the fine dining and confided I was looking forward to hearty staples like hamburgers and good pizza.

They gave me directions to a place called Sobelman’s behind an obstacle course of construction in a grungy warehouse district of downtown Milwaukee. The place was packed with friendly Brewer fans who were getting ready for the home playoff game against the Phillies.

The friendly owner seemed aghast that I’d been sitting at his bar, unattended for maybe two minutes (I’ve been a regular at places where I’d need to shave between servings so two minutes was nothing to me). He immediately poured me a free beer, the first of three, and I began calculating how my life would change if I moved my family to Milwaukee just to be close to a bar this cool.

The Bloody Mary’s were like salads with vodka dressing. Each pole vault sized-stalk of celery was pinned with a shrimp, a pearl onion, a cherry tomato, an asparagus spear, a jalapeno pepper, a chunk of cheddar and a delicious little dinner sausage. It’s the best Bloody Mary I’ve ever had. Nothing else even comes close.

And the burger was up there, too (the best is still Tessaro’s in Bloomfield near Pittsburgh), but this was outstanding. It had four cheeses, bacon, jalapeno peppers and mustard.

I liked Milwaukee a lot. Friendly people, great bars and restaurants, petty parks and I got to take my picture with the "Bronze Fonz"(give it a Google).

I’m going to try and get around to writing about all that stuff when I finish up my assignment. But the story I’m most looking forward to writing is based on what I saw at the Kohler Design Museum in the world's most posh factory town.

The museum features all the sinks, showers, tubs and faucets that have helped the Kohler family build a bathroom and kitchen empire and lavishly funded the fabulous town and golf resort that is the magnificent centerpiece of the golf boom taking over the state.

But what struck me was the 50-foot wall of commodes in the rear (go ahead and make your own jokes) of the museum. It towers over the space like a troupe of Chinese acrobats stacking porcelain chairs. They rise majestically from floor to ceiling, hundreds of them. If it were possible to flush them simultaneously, it would rival the storied Bellagio water show in Las Vegas.

Truly, in Kohler, the throne itself is king.

My love of stories like this has really held my career back. To succeed, I’m sure I should focus on all the splendors I enjoyed. I should concentrate on the sumptuous dining, the excellent golf, the friendly people and the splendid scenery.

But, no, I intend to forge ahead and write about the great wall of potties.

There’s never been a more perfect metaphor for why my turbulent career’s often in the crapper.

Walton's reruns help prepare for Great Depression II

I’ve been preparing for the coming economic siege by rewatching old episodes of “The Waltons.” We grew up watching the show about how a big close family struggled through the Great Depression.

They didn’t take fancy trips, dine on lobster, upgrade their iPods every couple of years, or enjoy any of the extravagant silliness that’s made the last 20 years so much superfluous fun.

I like that John Boy, a writer, never considered himself some sort of artist. He considered himself a tradesman, someone who’ll get better and better at his craft if he keeps working at it.

I liked that he wrote for the sheer joy of it even when there was no money around. I remember one episode he did a piece of writing for a down-on-his luck country editor and the guy paid him by giving him a live chicken.

I’ve never been paid with a chicken yet, but I’m open to bartering. I like to think of this blog the way John Boy thought of his writing. I do it because I love to write. For me, it’s great fun.

I happen to be writing this while I’m absolutely ensconced in luxury. I’m currently staying at the fabulous Delafield Hotel near Milwaukee. It’s one of those places so nice I’m having trouble figuring out how to turn on simple things like lights. The bathroom is nicer than some spas I’ve been to. It has a whale-sized bathtub with subsurface jacuzzi jets. The shower with six different functions, including rain shower and multiple body jets, one of which keeps goosing me in places where even the most intimate lovers rarely venture.

They’re treating me so nice I haven’t even thought of stealing things like towels and drapes like I usually do from a nice hotel.

This is one of those oh-so-sweet press junkets that are always tempting to someone as casual about journalism ethics as I am. Yesterday, I played Erin Hills and tomorrow I’m off for the stunning Whistling Straits. They’ve plied me with rivers of fine liquor, free golf and the kind of meals that would have had cranky old Grandma Walton huffing about fancy people dining like royalty when working men and women were surviving on scraps and apples.

But I’m here with a clean conscious because I have a bona fide assignment to write about Wisconsin golf and tourism for Kingdom Magazine. I take one of these trips for every 50 I’m offered. Taking more than that would be unfair to my family, it’s uncertain I could get stories published about the destination, and years of watching the Waltons has taught me not to be a pig about such things.

I’m thinking, too, that this might just be this travel writer’s swan song. It looks like we’re in for some damn hard times ahead. People aren’t going to be traveling to swanky resorts for a while.. That means swanky resorts aren’t going to be buying advertisements in golf and travel magazines. That means golf and travel magazines won’t be hiring guys like me to write stories.

Too bad for me.

I once asked my grandfather, who recently died at the age of, yikes, 97, what the Great Depression was like. “You know,” he said, “it wasn’t really all that bad. We had a lot less stuff, but people really helped each other out. It wasn’t too tough.”

That should be reassuring to anyone who listens to the doom sayers who grimly predict we’re in for another Great Depression.

Me, I’ll have some nice memories of my trips to places like this. I’ll scramble to find work, but that’s always been the case with me and many other freelance writers.

On the upside, it’ll give me plenty of time to attend to this little blog, something I enjoy doing. And thanks to those of you who take the time to read it and have told friends to do the same.

It doesn’t earn a dime, but I’m hoping maybe someday a grateful reader will send me a free chicken.