Happy Birthday, Ringo – Quite Simply, The Heart of The Beatles

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A friend who had the misfortune of being born a bit too early to experience full frontal Beatlemania once said to me, "Ringo wasn't one of the more important members of the group, was he?" To a rubber-souled, revolver-raving, fanatical Abbey Roadster like myself, this was among the greatest blasphemies ever spoken. If you said that Chico wasn't important to the Marx Brothers, that Fredo wasn't important to the Corleones, that Donny wasn't important to The Big Lebowski, I'd simply overlook your lack of film savvy or question your taste. But to suggest that Ringo was less than essential is the ultimate fallacy. It is, in the jargon of the Brits, a complete load of BULLOCKS!

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And the Score is Love-Love: A Teenage Tennis Tale

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"Where the boys are, someone waits for me," Connie Francis once sang. And just where were they waiting in my sleepy little hometown in the slow, sweet summertime? Well, let's just say it wasn't at our old cracked-concrete tennis courts. But for me, it was someplace to go, and go I did - back in my pre-car, pre-cash teen years. Every night after dinner, my friend Ann and I would dress to impress and make our way up cemetery hill to the courts to see and be seen. Alas, not much came of our tennis trolloping. Once or twice a guy friend would offer us a ride home, but it was never the guy we hoped for. Weren't we pretty enough, clever enough, or popular enough? Such thoughts would consume our high school years.

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A Man Walks Into a Bar: The Story of Klaus Voormann and The Beatles

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One night in 1960, German art student Klaus Voormann went out slumming and came home a changed man. He'd just had an argument with his girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr, and set off to walk the Reeperbahn, a boulevard in the St. Pauli red-light district of Hamburg, Germany. He heard some raucous music pouring from the seedy Kaiserkeller Club, walked inside, and discovered a band of five amphetamine-charged, leather-clad English boys shakin’ down the house. This was his first exposure to a rock-n-roll circus, and he was left – in his words – “speechless.” You could reckon that Mr. Voormann, who turns 77 today, had the distinction of being the first international Beatles fan -- and a whole lot more.

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Two Tales of a City

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Anthony Dominick Benedetto - better known as Tony Bennett -- may have been born and raised in Astoria, Queens, but his timeless love song to San Francisco would convince you he'd lived there all his life. Seriously, how could he NOT have left his heart in a place as beautiful as San Francisco? Well, the working-class seaport city of Liverpool, England, may be on the opposite end of the scale when it comes to romantic settings, but four famous rockers left their hearts there, nonetheless. And, like Mr. Bennett, they drew their inspiration from the city they loved. Forty-seven years ago this month, the Beatles released their 24th U.S. single, a double A-side record featuring two songs inspired John Lennon and Paul McCartney's childhood memories of Liverpool: "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane."

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Rudolph, You Rock. Now Wise Up, Reindeer!

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Okay, Rudolph, you've gone down in history with that song of yours. And for what? Selling out! So you were born with a shiny red schnoz and had the misfortune of living in a frozen polar ice cap with no access to a plastic surgeon or electrician. And all those big-antlered reindeer jocks and their patent-leather-hoofed cheerleader girlfriends called you names and shunned you because of it. I know, I know...it hurts to be the last one picked for the volleyball team. Bullying sucks. But, Rudolph, you copped out and allowed those conformist reindeer snobs to welcome you into their clique only after you bailed Santa's ass out of trouble. Man, you should have had more self-respect than that!

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