NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. -- As the two remaining Beatles approach 70, Ringo Starr has a healthy attitude about aging.

Paul McCartney turned 66 yesterday -- Starr left him a phone message wishing him well -- and the one-time Beatles drummer will turn 68 on July 7 while he is out on tour with the latest edition of his All-Starr Band.

"(I feel about 68 the) same as I felt about 28. It's another birthday. I love birthdays. I love gifts," Starr said in an interview with Sun Media backstage at Fallsview Casino Resort's Avalon Ballroom following a media conference leading up to tonight's launch of his 31-date tour.

As for McCartney, who just went through a horrible divorce with Heather Mills, Starr said: "He's doing a lot better now. It's been a hard year. Divorce is difficult for everybody. But when it's so public, it's harder."

In fact, at the media conference, Starr asked that everyone say "peace and love" on July 7 this year at noon no matter where they are.

"I've been laughed at for doing it. I've been praised for doing it. But as long as you do it ...," said Starr when asked about his unflagging optimism given the current state of the world. "It's another little pebble in the ocean, you know?"

After launching his past three tours at Casino Rama (near Orillia, Ont.), Starr set up shop at Fallsview this time with his bandmates Colin Hay (Men at Work), Edgar Winter, Hamish Stuart (Average White Band), Billy Squier, Gary Wright of Dream Weaver fame and drummer Gregg Bissonette (Santana, James Taylor).

"I like to laughingly say, 'It's great to do it in Canada because none of us have relations here so we don't have the kids and the wives and so we really get on with the work," Starr said.

The band members arrived on June 8 and have been putting in eight-hour rehearsals every day and not doing much sightseeing.

"Just sitting in my room," Starr quipped, although he's personally in awe of the Falls.

"I look out my window at that huge waterfall, it's incredible. I've never seen it before. Now I see it every morning. Wow, start the day with that, brother. It puts you in your place, I'll tell you."

One of Starr's few jaunts outside, he said, was a visit to a health-food store, which made the local papers the next day.

"I bought some cereal and stuff. That rice milk and almond milk. I'm just up there partying on down," he joked.

Starr, who said he got clean in 1988, clearly looks after himself by eating properly, working out and being productive.

In addition to releasing a new album, Liverpool 8, earlier this year, Ringo has got a new limited-edition book, Painting Is My Madness, in stores today, that documents his computer-generated art.