Beatles Quip at fast clip

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'AUDIENCE' FOR PRESS: Beatles Quip At a Fast Clip
By Beverly Beyette
 The San Diego Union, August 29, 1965, Page A-27

First came Ringo, the nervous one in the black velvet vest and Paul the friendly one in the gold and gray striped coat.

"We'll just grab the best seat," quipped Paul. Then he and Ringo laughed. Just because they like to laugh.

Ringo puffed nervously on his cigarette, squinted out of the blue eyes that just show under the Beatle bob, and laid his skinny sun glasses on the table.  George, wearing a black poplin jacket over a white crocheted shirt, and puffing on a cigarette, took his place to the right of Paul.  John, wearing a pale blue cotton jacket over a black T-shirt, took his place at Ringo's right and wrapped his feet in their pointy-toe boots around the rungs of his chair.  He tilted his head back a bit to see out from under the light brown hair that looks almost like a comic wig.  The Beatles were meeting the press. The Beatles don't have press conferences exactly - they hold audiences. It would be easier to get invited to tea at Buckingham Palace.

A Beatle audience goes something like this:
Q. John - What were you really trying to say in your book? Why don't people understand it?
A. I understand it. If I wrote in normal spelling there would be no point in writing. I'm not saying anything. There's no message.
(The high-pitched shrieks from inside Balboa Stadium can be heard just a few hundred yards away.)
The BeatIes shrugged. "We expect that!" they say, unconcerned.
Q. Do you think you are playing a joke on American kids?
John answers. John does most of the talking.
A. "We look on this as more of a joke than anything. But we wouldn't make music if we didn't like it. You'll find us playing in our hotel rooms."
Q. Where did you find your sound?
George answers. "We don't find sounds. We make them."
Q. How much longer do you think you will last?
George, wryly, “About 30 years.”
Q. Do you think you deserve to be made members of the Order of the British Empire?
"A lot more than a lot of people that get it," says John.
Q. About the Rolling Stones and the Dave Clark Five and the others ... do you consider them a threat to your popularity?
Paul: "But we've got our little skate boards for our hotel rooms."
Q. You've admitted to being agnostics. Are you also irreverent, as has been said?
Paul: "We are agnostics, so there is no point in being irreverent.”
Q. Why do you wear your hair so long?
John: "You like yours short, we like ours long."
"Da-da-da-da-da-da!" sings out Paul. He and Ringo tap their feet and do a little ditty over that one.
The press conference is over. The shrieks grow louder. The irreverent ones are gone.