Vertical Man (1998 album)

As you may already knew I became a huge Beatles fan after Anthology. And immediately afterward I pondered who I liked more John Lennon or Ringo Starr? After all I use to watch Shiny Time Station and imagine how stoked I was to find a whole nother secret career of his it was like finding the Batcave. Well a couple years later Ringo released Vertical Man and I loved it thinking it would be his GREAT COMEBACK. I didn't understand how a legendary musician who just made a great album not get a comeback after all the Monkees hit the top 20 with "That Was Then This Is Now" and the Beach Boys came back to #1 with "Kokomo". And I still think those songs are mediocre compared to the Vertical Man effort. Admittedly I didn't get Flaming Pie from Paul McCartney but I didn't know a song from it at the time but I heard "La De Da" on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and thought okay I have an excuse to buy this album because if my parents asked I needed to name a song I liked and "La De Da" would do. Eventually I did the same dumb mistake again as I did with The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash. I sold it. The logic being I was always telling people the Beatles were the best band ever with no one to match my enthusiasm and thought after watching hours of VH1 over a period of months that there may be better bands out there and to be fair and for the interest of getting my own interests mainstreamed I thought I'd experiment what else was out there. For over a decade I poured through Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Queen, Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Neil Young, The Who etc. I even tried the Doors, the Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, the Kinks, Prince, Marvin Gaye, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Eric Clapton, R.E.M. (just to try to include all the Classic Rock artists I've bought multiple albums of and in case you're wondering about Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones I bought Led Zeppelin IV and Hot Rocks and thought that was enough and don't even get me started on Lynyrd Skynyrd.) Anyway I still didn't find to match my enthusiasm combining with the consideration of making me less of a musical social outcast in a town that loved Kid Rock, Metallica, Limp Bizkit, Insane Clown Posse and Eminem. If I could go back ten years in my past rather than discuss why I'm still dateless and jobless and still living with my parents I would have giving my self this simply advice listen to "What In The ... World" "I Was Walkin'" "Without Understanding" and realize that this was the beginning of a wonderful relationship with the Beatles solo work that my only regret would be that these albums are so rare to find.