Who was the Fifth Beatle? A bit of debate over this topic as you'll see. Jim Quince writes: I'm sure Mr. Aspinall was a great guy & am sorry he is gone, but reporting him as the Fifth Beatle is dumb & possibly schizophrenic. First, silent Stuart Sutcliff was the Fifth Beatle. Then George Martin was the Fifth Beatle. Now Neil Aspinall?

Response: Jim, I understand where you are coming from BUT this title given to Neil came directly from one of the FOUR horse's mouth. See wiki info: "The Fifth Beatle is an informal title that various commentators in the press and entertainment industry have applied to persons who were at one point a member of The Beatles, or who had a strong association with the 'Fab Four' during the group's existence other than John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. The 'Fifth Beatle' claims appeared in the press immediately upon the band's sensational rise to global fame in 1963-1964 as the most famous quartet in pop culture.

"At the Beatles' 1988 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, George Harrison at one point stated that there were only two 'fifth Beatles': Derek Taylor and Neil Aspinall.

"Martin himself deflects claims of being the 'fifth Beatle' to Beatles' manager Brian Epstein."

We're Serious Dude We did get a few emails over the whole Motley rumor mess last week. We'd reprint one of them here, but they basically all said the same thing, as if written from the same collective brain, and were the equivalent to us just being "jealous haters". Which is fine... because we are. A bit about losing out on the throngs of Motley fans visiting our site was enjoyable as well. We'll miss all 14 of them. We really will.

But one fan went beyond the predictable gibberish and suggested that the mess was caused because we don't take the band seriously. He or she is right and we promise from hence forth to give things like pink bandanas and assless pants the serious consideration they deserve as we ponder the deep intellectual meanings of lyrics like "Girls, Girls, Girls
Long legs and burgundy lips / Girls, Girls, Girls / Red lips, fingertips" and "He's the one they call Dr. Feelgood / He's gonna be your Frankenstein". These lyrics evoke questions like: So are the lips red or burgundy? And what does the Mary Shelly's classic have to do with a drug dealer? Ok to be fair, Feelgood did have a deeper meaning then that silly line conveyed. And we do have to recognize the band's influence, without them raising the bar we may not have had the profound experience of hearing the genius of lyrics like "I'm just a sucker with a lump in my throat (hey) like a chump... I did it all for the nookie (come on) the nookie (come on) / so you can take that cookie and stick it up your (yeah)." We will do our best to take them more serious in the future. "Bashful Betty, such a bondage brat / Dressed in latex and coated in sewer rat" and "Got a date with my modem line / backdoor valentine." This really is pure genius! "..com .cum" very clever. You sold us.

In all seriousness, while Nikki's lyrics seldom delve into topics deeper then strippers, tattoos, and drugs we will give him props for having a great sense of melody that allows him to write catchy songs. If you enjoy their music, great! Enjoy it. Some of our writers here enjoy their music. But beyond that, it's still tough taking anyone that uses the word "dude," more than three times in a conversation that serious. We'll try and until then, party on dude!

Tip of the week or rather, Real News You Can Use!

Aside from arguing meaningless points with readers, The Mailbag sometimes offers up a public service. "F-R-E-E- that spells... bullsh*t". You can't seem to escape the singing dork commercials these days. He's trying to sell you a credit reporting service by telling you what a loser he is. The problem is he says this service is free, which it's not. To get your free report you have to sign up for a "free trial" in a credit monitoring service and if you don't cancel they will bill you $14.95 a month. The trouble is this "free trial" period is only 7 days and the fine print says it may take 2-3 weeks to be fully enrolled, so you can get alerts from all three the credit agencies. They only promise you a look at the Experian report. So if you have a major boo boo on your TransUnion report, you're screwed. So much for free huh?

Now it is my understanding that it is federal law that all three major credit reporting agencies are required to furnish a free copy of your credit report once a year (but you have to request it). You won't find your "free" credit reports at freecreditreport.com but at annualcreditreport.com; the site set up to provide these mandated credit reports online. Better yet, it's singing dork free and it really is free. Used it a couple months ago with no problem, they asked some questions to verify my identity and I got all three of my reports right then.

They say on the site: "This central site allows you to request a free credit file disclosure, commonly called a credit report, once every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. AnnualCreditReport.com is the official site to help consumers to obtain their free credit report." So save yourself some money and help that other site's ads fail because the singing nerd has gone far beyond annoying. So to recap: read the small print; if they ask for a credit card number, it's not free. - F-R-E-E only spells free at this link

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