Gawker: defamer, the beatles

Ringo Starr Officially Hates You

STV — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:15:20 EDT

You know how you've been writing, editing and rewriting your fan letter to Ringo Starr for the last decade, only to stand at the mailbox time and again, reeling at the note's inadequate expression of how deeply his work and spirit have sustained you all these years, thus pushing you back to your desk for another few months of wistful, Proustian polishing? Believe us, we relate. As such, Starr's disclosure Tuesday that he will neither accept nor return fan mail after Oct. 20 has lit an epistolary fire under our ass to finally put this thing to bed. It's exactly what we needed — especially in the stern, slightly schizophrenic terms Starr bellows in his videotaped warning after the jump.

Frankly, we never would have started this had Ringo not previously evinced such determination to satisfy his devotees; we're reminded again this morning of his guest spot long ago on The Simpsons, in which the minor Beatle spent the better part of 20 years waiting to thank Marge for her painted portrait of him. But between his erratic, ongoing tour schedule and the lingering bitterness over those cheeky vandals who decapitated his likeness last April at the Beatles' topiary in Liverpool, poor Ringo's goodwill is simply spread too thin. That doesn't mean he doesn't wish you a lifetime of peace and love, he says here — just keep it to yourself. Oh, all right, Ringo. If you insist.

Sorry, No More Signing Stuff [RingoStarr.com]

Ringo Starr: No More Fan Mail [AP]

There’s Nothing Wrong With A Glass Of Pellegrino At Lunch

Douglas Reinhardt — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:10:00 EDT

Boomp3.com

Die hard Beatles and botox fan Sharon Stone washed away the drama of the week’s events with a nice tall glass of Pellegrino at lunch with a friend on Thursday. Stone believed it was perfect okay to have a glass of the Italian mineral water with her meal. Stone said, “One glass isn’t going to kill me. If anything, it’s going to make me healthier with all those minerals and stuff.”

[Photo Credit: Flynet]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Guardian reporter Sean Michaels has discovered...

STV — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:55:00 EDT

Guardian reporter Sean Michaels has discovered a sort of epistolary parallel universe in which A Clockwork Orange is a late-'60s time capsule from hell: A recently unearthed letter from the period propositioned director John Schlesinger — presumably between his Oscar-winning films Darling and Midnight Cowboy — to helm the film with Mick Jagger in the lead. It gets better: The Beatles were reportedly interested in contributing songs. Alas, Schlesinger evidently had a problem with novelist Anthony Burgess's infamous ultraviolence; "the film's extreme delinquency wasn't 'the sort of subject I particularly want to tackle,' " the director told executive producer Si Litvinoff, thus opening the door for Stanley Kubrick's dystopic 1971 masterwork starring Malcolm McDowell. Michaels spends a few minutes fancying the alternate Jagger/Beatles version, but really, we'd rather not imagine this at all unless... no. Just no. Sorry we even brought it up. No. [The Guardian]