Toronto, July 27, 2025
Looking good and going fast
Looking good and going fast. Keith and Ringo. You know who I mean.
Keith Richards, known as Keef, is a songwriter and performer on the electric guitar, a member of The Rolling Stones. He’s rich and famous. Otherwise, he might, to some, seem a bit of a dull bloke. He’s been married (to his second wife) for over forty years and has seven grandchildren. He is interested in history and owns a large library. He once said he’d like to be a librarian. He is fond of shepherd’s pie and advises fellow gourmands to add more onions to enhance the pie's flavour. He’s 81 years old.
Once, a long time ago, Keef was a bad boy. He was a notorious drug user. In 1978, in Toronto, he pleaded guilty to possession of heroin. Before that he had faced several drug-related charges in England. His dicey past and longevity inspire jokes, e.g., “Scientists have confirmed that after a nuclear apocalypse, the only things left will be cockroaches and Keith Richards.”
Keef is anti-establishment. When Mick Jagger accepted a knighthood in 2003, Richards described the honour as “ludicrous.” When asked about the possibility of being knighted himself, he said, “I wouldn't let a member of that family near me with a sharp stick, much less a sword.”
But never mind all that. Today, Keith Richards, although an old man, is looking good and going fast. The Rolling Stones had a successful North American tour in 2024. They are planning to go back on the live circuit in 2026.
Sir Richard Starkey, known as Ringo Starr, is 85 years old. He is the wealthiest drummer in the world. He has been married (to his second wife) for over forty years. He has eight grandchildren. He is a vegetarian.
Ringo was an alcoholic and drug addict in the late 1970s and 1980s and checked into rehab in 1988. But all was eventually forgiven, and he was knighted in 2018, at Buckingham Palace, by Prince William, using a sword (no doubt to Keef’s amusement and disgust).
The May 2025 issue of The Atlantic contained a hagiographic article by Mark Leibovich called “When I’m 84: The World Still Needs Ringo Starr.” Leibovich described Ringo as “a seminal figure in the history of popular music...” In a fanboy-style overstatement, Leibovich says Ringo “is among the most scrutinized, fetishized, analyzed, and catechized people in history.”
Contra Leibovich, Ringo has often been described as a good, but not great, musician. When John Lennon was asked if he thought Ringo was the best drummer in the world, he said, “He’s not even the best drummer in The Beatles.” (Paul McCartney disagreed. He said: “Ringo is one of the greatest and most inventive drummers of all time.”)
Ringo may be 85, but—like Keef—he’s looking good and going fast. Leibovich writes: “Starr confirmed that he is a failed retiree, many times over. ‘I’ve had enough; I’ve done enough,’ he will say. ‘And then I get a phone call: ‘Well, we’ve got 10 gigs if you’re interested.’ ‘Okay.’ And we’re on the road again.’” Ringo’s recent album Look Up, with T. Bone Burnett, is one of his most successful albums ever. “You can only do what you can do,” he says.
Here's the point. Keef and Ringo are old men, but they haven’t quit. For that they are to be admired and emulated.
By the way, you may wonder where this “looking good and going fast” tagline comes from. When I practiced law, I had an entrepreneur client who told me one day that he’d bought a cigarette boat. Why? I asked. The most important thing in life, he said, is looking good and going fast.
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Some reader comments on Endgame #114 (“Big city walkers”)
Howard Norman writes from Vermont: “‘A long walk allows unguarded joy and sorrow, the gift of unbidden emotion.’ (Dorothy Wordsworth). In the summer of 2007, just before I set out on a two-and-a-half month walk along Basho's ‘okunohosomiche,’ or Narrow Road to the North, in Japan, I would walk the back dirt roads near my family's farmhouse, and saw people and houses I had not really taken notice of in the previous twenty years. Half a dozen times, I encountered a woman (let's call her Charlotte), who was in the eighties. She carried a journal and jotted down notes and made drawings of the varied plants and flowers along the way. (Turns out, she had been a botanical illustrator for text books; she had had a series of small strokes...) On each encounter, she'd say, ‘I saw you asleep on your barn roof,’ or, ‘I heard a lot of people were at your memorial service,’ or, ‘It would be good for your beautiful talented wife to remarry, I think.’ Clearly she was asserting that I had met my demise. Several dear neighbors witnessed a few of these incidents. There was humor, a disturbing sense of emotional displacement, an existential jolt, and a number of other responses. I read a lot about the Bardo. Anyway, Philip, your entry on walking brought this back and I would only ask that if you see me walking in the Little Italy section of Toronto, that you invite me to have a coffee together and take my pulse.”
I went to a baseball game with my daughter Gabrielle and she writes: “You never know strangers' stories... It turns out the old guy sitting in front of us at the game yesterday (you pointed out his cane) was a member of the 1954 New York Giants, who won the World Series! A few people approached him to take a photo of the World Series ring he was wearing.”
Heather, an old friend of mine with red hair, writes from Port Hope: “I've had to stop walking for a while because of arthritis and vertigo so I'm definitely not the woman with the red hair that I used to be.”
From David Wolinsky, in British Columbia: “For the past 20 years every morning I walk on White Rock’s Promenade along the beautiful Pacific and regularly encounter the same hundred or so individuals. Shortly after first arriving, I came to understand that saying ‘Good morning’ to these people every day would occupy my entire walk and deny me the peace of quiet reflection that I enjoy so much. And the other people I regularly passed obviously had similar thoughts since for those 20 years we were all seemingly blessed with the cloak of invisibility and never exchanged greetings. And yes over the years I have attributed nicknames to most of them, and undoubtedly to many of them I’d like to think I’m just ‘the Paul Newman lookalike’ or ‘that distinguished older gentleman,’ and not ‘the old grey butterball.’”
From Faye in Toronto: “Ah, you chose my favorite activity, walking. And how lucky are we to live in a city with so much to offer walkers. Ravines, unique neighborhoods, amazing green spaces and an ever changing lake front. This city is made for walking. I too spot other daily walkers. The couple with the steel rod posture. The dapper man with an array of bright pink and light blue suits. The young woman whose disappearing body makes me worry every time I see her. The older lady with her walker who is remarkably beautiful and elegantly dressed at all times.We often exchange a small smile or a slight nod of recognition even a crisp hello. I sometimes imagine their stories but I never think to start a conversation. Maybe I should.”
And Peter Mushkat, in Nova Scotia, draws our attention to this: “From the Department of There’s a Song for Everything …”
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Note to readers: I’ll be doing some summer shunpiking for the next two weeks, and so there won’t be a new Endgame until August 16.
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And finally, the inevitable pitch:
Available from Amazon in most countries, and from some independent bookstores in Canada (coast-to-coast) including Ben McNally Books in Toronto, Russell Books in Victoria, B.C., and Salt-Water Ballad Books in Port Medway, Nova Scotia.
your closing line reminds me of advice I saw years ago - from Snoopy, though he had no doubt picked it up from somewhere older - "the secret of life is looking good at a distance."
Enjoy! New word to me - using non-toll roads!