Well you say it's your birthday....
So I saw in the news today that Ringo Starr was in town and planning a lunchtime event to celebrate his 68th birthday. He was going to appear outside the entrance of the Hard Rock Hotel where he wanted everyone to flash the peace sign at the stroke of noon.
I don't have anything better to do, and the Hard Rock Hotel is only a couple of blocks from my office, so I headed over. I got there about ten minutes before "Peace Time" and was surprised at the turnout. It's been all over the local media this morning that this was happening, so I shouldn't have been surprised - but there were hundreds of people crowded around the entrance, and lined up across the street hoping for a glimpse.
I managed to get rather close to the action by squeezing along the backside of the crowd. I ended up getting inside the entrance area, actually... which was a result of everybody pushing forward when Starr arrived.
He got there and was posing for the cameras and doing interviews as the crowd went CRAZY. They started pushing and shoving forward just as security wanted us to all back up - causing me to get rather crushed between hordes of middle-aged tourists.
Ringo is pretty small, and was really difficult to see over the crowd. For the first several minutes the best I could manage was a glimpse of the top of his head and his sunglasses. However, they pushed people back towards me even more (as I got more crushed) and they brought out a cake for him. He made his way over for a photo-op with the cake which put him only a few feet away from me for less than a minute. I was able to snap a pic of him while he was near me... I'll upload it in a bit.
After he was done w/ his little PR stunt, he went inside and people continued pressing forward trying to get another glimpse of him through the windows.
Jeesh... You'd think it was The Beetles or something!
I don't have anything better to do, and the Hard Rock Hotel is only a couple of blocks from my office, so I headed over. I got there about ten minutes before "Peace Time" and was surprised at the turnout. It's been all over the local media this morning that this was happening, so I shouldn't have been surprised - but there were hundreds of people crowded around the entrance, and lined up across the street hoping for a glimpse.
I managed to get rather close to the action by squeezing along the backside of the crowd. I ended up getting inside the entrance area, actually... which was a result of everybody pushing forward when Starr arrived.
He got there and was posing for the cameras and doing interviews as the crowd went CRAZY. They started pushing and shoving forward just as security wanted us to all back up - causing me to get rather crushed between hordes of middle-aged tourists.
Ringo is pretty small, and was really difficult to see over the crowd. For the first several minutes the best I could manage was a glimpse of the top of his head and his sunglasses. However, they pushed people back towards me even more (as I got more crushed) and they brought out a cake for him. He made his way over for a photo-op with the cake which put him only a few feet away from me for less than a minute. I was able to snap a pic of him while he was near me... I'll upload it in a bit.
After he was done w/ his little PR stunt, he went inside and people continued pressing forward trying to get another glimpse of him through the windows.
Jeesh... You'd think it was The Beetles or something!