when we was fab

I love The Beatles. I grew up on The Beatles. I certainly understand their influence and contribution to popular music. I am aware of their impact on pop culture and the innovations they introduced to the recording process. They were The Beatles, for goodness sakes!

I also have a sense of humor about pretty much anything and everything. Nothing is sacred — especially the things that you and I hold dear. The angrier someone gets when something they love is made the butt of a joke, the funnier that joke becomes. Exponentially funnier.

If you have followed me on various social media outlets, you are aware of my sense of humor and a series of running jokes which seem to infiltrate my assorted feeds on a regular basis. There's my nearly daily chronicle of Ambrose the cat. There's my documentation of the various food that literally litters the streets of my neighborhood — free for the taking.... while supplies last, of course. And, then there's my on-going disdain for Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.

Peace and luv.
Peace and luv.

I'm not going to explain the origins of my online feud with Mr. Starr. If you have to explain a joke, it immediately ceases to be funny. Just accept it. If you think it's funny, fine. If you don't quite "get it," maybe you will in the future... or maybe you just won't. That's okay. Move on. Maybe something not as subtle or esoteric will make you laugh. My humor runs the gamut from blatant to exclusive (as in "For my amusement only"). I'm sure, if you stick around long enough, you'll find something funny. Or not.

Recently, I reconnected — on Facebook — with a classmate from art school. I have not seen this guy since his graduation (he was a year ahead of me), save for the few times we ran into him at a local flea market where he was hawking used record albums from the confines of a dusty booth in the sweltering summer heat. I remember that he was a huge Beatles fan, Like HUGE! Like no other band mattered. No other band existed! As far as he was concerned, everyone shared his love of the Fab Four and no one knew as much about or cared as much for those four loveable mop tops from Liverpool. According to his recent Facebook posts, that still stands. Except now, it is over half a century since the band's last studio album and two of the band members have passed away. Plus, a lot of music has come out since the demise of the Beatles and an awful lot of people don't really hold them in such high reverence anymore. The ones that do are showing their age and showing the sad grip that they are trying to maintain on a youth that has long passed. They can't be content on just liking The Beatles and remembering the feeling evoked by their music. No, they must badger subsequent generations into loving The Beatles just as much as they do and denouncing the current crop of musicians as vastly inferior. That is their goal, their mission, their function as their own mortality looms large. The fear that no one will be left to carry the Beatles mantle is their motivation.

My new old Facebook friend doesn't like my playful ribbing of Ringo Starr. Not. One. Bit. He has commented with great fervor. He has berated me and justified Ringo's (alleged) talent. He has enumerated the Beatles drummer's numerous (debatable) successes. He has gone back to comment on months-old posts I made, long before we were connected. He had to make sure that every single post about Ringo was addressed and properly disputed.

Happy birthday.

Yesterday (June 18), was Paul McCartney's birthday. Not restricting my jibes to Ringo, I have made it an annual tradition to wish the celebrated bassist a "Happy Birthday" and accompany my greeting with a current photo of actress Angela Lansbury, to which Sir Paul, in his advanced years, bears a striking resemblance. It's funny... at least in my opinion. I have garnered many "thumbs up" accolades to these posts, so, obviously, I am not the only one who sees the similarities in the looks of these two British icons and I am not the only one who finds it funny.

My new old Facebook friend found this particularly offensive. Acting as the self-appointed official Keeper of All Things Beatles, he left a seething comment, in ALL CAPS no less, affording me a hearty "FUCK YOU." He addressed me by my birth name (the one he knew me by when we attended art school together, long before the advent of "Josh Pincus")... and he spelled it wrong.

I almost deleted the comment, unfriended him and blocked his account from seeing any more of my posts. But I didn't.

I couldn't.

This is just too funny.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com