Rock and Roll Is The Answer

I met Marky Ramone on Saturday, and I managed not to ask him about falafel.

My boyfriend Joey Ramone is incredulous. via http://indiewithabindi.tumblr.com

I am notoriously bad at meeting people I admire. I attribute this mainly to the fact that I’m rather academic when it comes to subjects I like and am quite interested in. I tend to read a lot of books and watch a lot of documentaries and interviews about my favorite topics. I often tell the docents who volunteer at my museum that the key to giving a really engaging museum tour is to become an expert at their favorite aspect of our collection’s focus, and I apply this advice to my own interests tenfold. However, a side effect is that it makes meeting the people at the center of my favorite subjects – such as, say, the Ramones – a bit awkward. It’s as if I know too much about a person I am ostensibly just meeting. Often, my first impulse is to blurt out some completely random thought that has just popped into my head. On the rare occasion when I happen to see a person I admire – famous or otherwise. I’m usually loathe to go up and say “hi” – I don’t want to bother them when they’re “off duty,” or I worry that I’m mistaken and that woman over there who I think is Debbie Harry is actually a harried accountant who just wants to get her freaking five dollar footlong and get back to the office before that stupid marketing girl takes her parking space again. Both factors were at play during the Joey Ramone/Howard Stern/falafel incident, after which I vowed to not be such a weenie anymore. This is how I wound up telling John Waters in excruciating detail, about my college film professor (who was something of a Waters protege) and his creepy snakeskin cowboy boots in a movie theatre lobby once, and then John Waters’ mom patted my wrist and said, “It’s so nice to know that people still think of Johnny.” And then John Waters said it was really nice to meet me, and thanked me for thanking him for being one of my favorite film directors, and I wanted to disappear into a vat of movie theatre popcorn butter.

After that, I mainly hoped that I looked interesting enough that people I admired would want to talk to me, and I wouldn’t have to approach them. This method has worked exactly once. At a horror movie convention. On Gary Busey. Which wasn’t really what I was going for.

Gary Busey, or: as close to Buddy Holly as I will ever get.

I would be meeting Marky Ramone in a formal meet and greet before the Blitzkrieg performance at the Gramercy Theatre in New York on Saturday night, which relieved one of my anxieties. The show was part of a launch party for his new memoir, Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life as a Ramone, and I would be getting a personally autographed copy as part of the meet and greet.  While I was waiting in line for my two minute audience, I couldn’t help overhearing a lot of the conversations Marky had with other fans. Mostly a lot of “What’s your name?” and “I’m a huge fan,” etc. Cool. I could do that. I could manage that without going off the rails.

And then it was my turn. I walked over completely prepared to have a normal conversation. Marky cracked open my new book and asked my name so he could autograph it. I told him, and then blurted, “So, was that your Dodge Challenger on Instagram? Or was it just a promotional thing?”

He looked up at me. “It’s mine.”

I said, “Do you love it? I’m in the process of getting one.”

And we were off. We talked about how awesome the movie Vanishing Point is, and he told me he was on the list for a Hellcat. He asked me what kind I was getting. I told him just a plain V6, which would still be the most powerful car I’d ever owned. His manager started making the “wind it up” motion at him, since there was still a line of people out the door, so I obediently started heading out the door. “Get the Redline 3.6!” he yelled after me. “You’re gonna love it!”

So. For once in my life, blurting out the first thing that came to mind paid off.

Another perk of going to the meet and greet? Getting onto the floor before everybody else. I got probably the best spot I have ever had at any concert I have ever been to: on the barrier, right beside the super special VIP seating area.

I was basically Riff Randell.

via http://www.aerozeppeli-n.tumblr.com

 I was a little apprehensive going into the show. It was the same way I’d initially felt when we went to see Queen with Adam Lambert last summer – after all, Joey, Dee Dee, and Johnny were not going to be there. Was the show going to feel like I was watching a well loved movie on an old TV – basically the same, but a little fuzzy, a little out of focus and ghostly?

Andrew WK was on vocals. We’d caught his set at Riot Fest in September, and had a blast – his show was so high energy and joyous. He seemed like he’d be a good fit, and he was. Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg was electrifying. Andrew WK didn’t try to be Joey Ramone – in some ways, in fact, he was a polar opposite, dressed in his traditional white T-shirt and jeans and eschewing a mic stand completely (also, before the show I saw a ton of pizzas being carried back stage, so one can only assume that the “No pizza for you, Joey!” rule was not in effect). But he got it. He got the humor, and the energy, and the pure joy of being at a Ramones show.

The bassist had the Dee Dee thing down, and the guy on guitar was intense, and completely shredding, but he was obviously having a blast. He did not have that signature Johnny Ramone look on his face that said, “I would seriously like to murder each and every one of you motherfuckers with my bare hands, but I’ve got to play this guitar, so I’m not gonna.” You all know that look.

You know. This look. Photo by Chip Dayton via http://www.cretin-family.tumblr.com

Being that close, and being able to see Marky Ramone at work, was an amazing experience. It was like taking the back off of a fine Swiss timepiece and seeing all the inner workings ticking away seamlessly. He was so tight and so precise that I wondered how a human being could be that fast and that powerful. The work on the chorus of Chinese Rocks alone was revelatory.

The sold out crowd was a joyous, throbbing, mob scene. And after three encores, I collapsed, sweaty, exhausted, and probably partially deaf. And it was totally worth it.  I never got to see the Ramones perform live. Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg is as close as I’m going to get, and it blew completely past my expectations like Kowalski past the Highway Patrol. Thanks to Marky, the Ramones live.

(PS: I did a lot of other really cool stuff in New York. Keep checking back here for more!)

I Have a Lot Of Very Important Feelings About the Upcoming Joey Ramone Auction

I’m presuming by now you have all heard the huge, earth shattering news. Unless, of course, unlike me, you have a full and active life (or, at the very least, a weekly bus trip to the library to look forward to), in which case, let me be the first to tell you…

There’s going to be another auction of Joey Ramone’s things.

He may be a bit more indignant than incredulous this time. via http://indiewithabindi.tumblr.com

The first auction was last winter, and there was some mild controversy over it – namely, as to whether or not it was a cash grab by Joey’s relatives. I expect there is going to be more controversy over this one, given the renewed interest in the Ramones following Tommy’s death. I really don’t have much to say on that front. No decision as to how to dispose of a dead rock star’s things will ever be lauded as the “right” decision, and  I doubt this decision was made lightly. Also, Joey has been gone for thirteen years now. He’s not going to suddenly burst through the door and start shouting, “Oi! Where the fuck do you think you’re going with my DVD player?!” except for in some very weird, very specific fan fiction.

All that being said, I think it’s normal, as a fan, to feel a bit sad about these things. It’s like a neon sign flashing, “Hey y’all! Here’s a big reminder that that person you really like is dead!” I have a suspicion that the family may be preparing to sell Joey’s apartment, as the upcoming auction contains items like his entertainment center, his TV, and his couch. (That faint shouting you’re hearing is Patrick yelling, “You don’t need Joey Ramone’s couch!” from the other side of the room). Indeed, I do kind of wonder who is going to be buying stuff like that, because Patrick is quite right – I don’t need Joey Ramone’s couch, and I wonder about the ability of, say, his Sega Game Gear TV tuner pack to find a good home. Especially with a minimum bid of $200. And while it does feel like a punch in the gut to see things Joey may have used everyday catalogued, priced, and sold to the highest bidder, my only real opinion here is that I hope these things go to real fans who are going to love and cherish them, and not to some creepy dude who “flips” celebrity memorabilia on eBay. In my head, this guy uses a lot of hair gel and also sells mobile phones at a kiosk at the mall.

He is basically Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino.

I do not know why Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino is a slimy memorabilia reseller on eBay in the darker recesses of my mind. It alarms me that Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino is occupying space in my brain at all. Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino really should have disappeared from our collective consciousness in 2011. via Getty Images.

Ok, now that I’ve explained that my feelings on this matter are completely irrelevant, I would like to tell you more about my feelings anyway. And those feelings are that I would be completely over the moon to own just almost anything being featured in this auction. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights:

Joey Ramone’s Record Collection

Some of my favorite albums are featured here, which makes my little fangirl heart explode – I have a lot of the very same records as Joey Ramone! Joey Ramone liked Sleater Kinney! That being said, both here and in Joey Ramone’s CD collection there is a bit more Rod Stewart than I would have expected. Enough Rod Stewart, frankly, that if Joey Ramone and I had a real relationship that existed outside of my head, I would probably have a talk with him about the amount of Rod Stewart in his life.

Joey Ramone’s Black Leather Pants

You all have thirty seconds to make your crass jokes about “getting into Joey Ramone’s pants.”

Joey Ramone’s T-shirt

Fact: wearing Joey Ramone’s t-shirt automatically makes you the coolest person in the room. Even if you are in the same room as Quentin Tarantino, Debbie Harry, and Beyonce.

Joey Ramone’s Bracelet

I want this most of all. I think it’s beautiful. I’m sure it says something very life affirming in Sanskrit. I would likely not lose it down a sewer grate because it slipped off my ridiculously tiny wrist. It would be perfect.

A girl can dream.

You can check out the rest of the auction – including lyrics and Simpsons cels – here. It starts October 16. Good luck, cretins!

Part Two: That Time Joey Ramone Wrote a Song About Me. (He Absolutely Did Not). (But Maybe He Did).

 

Well, howdy! Welcome back to my probably delusional saga! If you missed Part One, read it here.

On a side note, before I launch back into my tale, I’ve gotten a couple of requests for photos of the truly epic outfit I described in Part One. Sadly, there are none, as I spent a large part of my teen years actively avoiding having my photo taken unless a team of experts had been at work on my face and hair for at least an hour or so beforehand. Subsequently, most of my birthday photos from this time look like this:

Looking sullen in a Nine Inch Nails baby tee, natch!

However, rest assured that the outfit was so amazingly late Nineties that, were it for some reason a sentient being with a home, it would be legally obligated to answer the door by saying, “Hi, you’ve reached 1999. Inflatable furniture is to your left, and dial up Internet connections that go “SkreEEEEEEEESHHHHbeeepbeepbeepbeepbeeeeepboopboopskrEEEESHHH” are down the hall.”

Anyway.

I didn’t really tell anybody about my possible (alleged) celebrity sighting when I returned. As far as celebrity sightings go, “I may have seen Joey Ramone, or possibly Howard Stern, from a distance at Rockefeller Plaza. Or it might have been a bike messenger regretting his sartorial choice of leather pants” is about as interesting as “I saw that meteorologist from Channel 8 who accidentally said ‘dammit’ on the air when I went with my mom to pay the water bill.” In truth, I mostly forgot about it.

Until…

In March of 2012, I heard that a posthumous Joey Ramone album called …Ya Know? was going to be dropping on my 31st birthday – May 22. I made a mental note to check it out, but it wasn’t really at the forefront of my radar. I was in the middle of a huge, potentially career making project at work, and the album was going to be made up of remastered demos that hadn’t made it onto Joey Ramone’s first solo album, stuff he hadn’t quite finished writing – basically, things that got lost in the shuffle. Posthumous releases can sometimes be a bit creepy (remember The Beatles’ Free As a Bird, anyone?). Granted, Joey’s first solo release, Don’t Worry About Me, had been released after his death, but he had been actively working on it before he went into the hospital for the last time, so it didn’t have that slightly ghostly element of having all the instrumentals mixed around a vocal track recorded by the deceased years before.  It also contains the best good-mood-inducing song ever, Joey’s cover of What A Wonderful World.

A friend on Facebook posted a link to a single from the new album called I Couldn’t Sleep, and I loved it. I checked out the complete track listing and was amused to see a song listed called Eyes of Green. “Look, y’all! Joey Ramone wrote a song about me!” I joked hilariously. (I was not at all hilarious).

And then, on a slow day at work, I listened to it.

Ok. Let’s talk about Eyes of Green for a minute.

As Joey Ramone penned love songs go, it is certainly not Danny Says, which is a gorgeous Wall of Sound masterpiece that is just now starting to be recognized for the work of genius it is. And it’s not My My Kind of Girl, a song designed to make every right thinking girl in America hope with all her might that Joey Ramone just happens to be hanging out in her favorite pizza parlor the next time she gets a yen to hear The Kids Are Alright on the jukebox. My personal guess is that Eyes of Green is one of those songs he didn’t finish – why, I don’t know. Maybe he got sick, or maybe he listened to the initial demo and decided, “Fuck this. I’m going to go write a song about Maria Bartiromo instead.”

However.

Eyes of Green contains this very intriguing (if you are a sociopath) verse:

She’s dark and twisted like me/A creature of intrigue/She’s something that you don’t forget/An axe murderess I’ll bet.

You know what that sounded like to me? That sounded like the sort of girl who wears the lipstick of the undead to hang out in Rockefeller Center eating falafel and reading Helter Skelter, and OH MY GOD IT WAS HIM THAT DAY AND HE SAW ME.

My delusional lizard brain went into complete overdrive. Was it a coincidence that …Ya Know? dropped ON MY BIRTHDAY?? (In the real world, where rational people live, it made perfect sense – new books and albums come out on Tuesdays, and May 22 just happened to be the closest Tuesday to May 19, which is Joey Ramone’s birthday). Wait – there’s only three days between my birthday and Joey Ramone’s? WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!!1!

I was two steps away from looking for Illuminati secret messages in Katy Perry videos and seriously asking an online Magic 8 Ball important questions like, “Should I get that mole checked out?”

Hmmm. Seems legit.

There are many, many other issues with my “Eyes of Green is about me” hypothesis. First and foremost, there were no references in the song to falafel. However, it is possible that perhaps it was the falafel based verse that broke the songwriter’s pencil and caused him to abandon the project. Yes. That was obviously it.

Things that rhyme with “falafel:” Ummm…waffle?

Less easily explained, however, was the question of distance. You might recall that Joey Ramone was fairly far away that day when I thought maybe I had seen him – so far, in fact, that it could possibly have been Howard Stern. As Joey Ramone was one of the most distinctive looking people on the planet, it is physically impossible that he could have been close enough to me to be inspired to song by my amazing eyes without me noticing. Unless – UNLESS! – he employed top Soviet era spy techniques which I know about because I have watched Get Smart. Perhaps he was disguised as, say, a flagpole (Romania’s, perhaps? That was a terrible joke. I’m going to shoot myself in the face now). There may have been a periscope device secreted in his glasses.

This level of stalkerdom would likely destroy any long held and cherished notions I had about Joey Ramone um…not being a criminally adept stalker, I guess. Indeed, I think such a revelation may have snapped even Riff Randall out of her marijuana induced haze of lust.

Or….maybe not. From jeffryhyman.tumblr.com.

At the end of the day, though, I guess it doesn’t really matter. The song still makes me smile every time I hear it. And it reminds me of that time when I was starting to discover that there were people out there that wanted to be my friend – maybe even the lead singer of my favorite band.

How To Believe Things That Are Not Real Are Real, Part One.

Do you remember The Secret? It was big a few years ago. I never actually read the book (or saw the movie – a perplexing concept in and of itself), but I gather that the premise was that one could manifest their heart’s desire- money, love, a dream job, whatever – by wanting it really, really badly and thinking positive thoughts. I’m not here to argue for or against the validity of this practice, but one thing I do wonder about is if The Secret can be applied retroactively. Because I may have kind of done it.

This is my story.

In late spring of my senior year of high school, my French IV class took a day trip to New York City to see Les Miserables, since we’d been reading the book in the original French all year. I was  looking forward to the trip, as I’d just made my first ever trip to Manhattan a few weeks before and couldn’t wait to go back. I’d gotten the news that I was one of the  5% of successful applicants to the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in early April, and my dad had taken me up to New York on AMTRAK to attend the accepted students’ reception.

Fun fact: This showed up at my house before my actual acceptance letter, so my parents hid it just in case it was a mistake.

I’d loved the other students I’d met. In fact, classmates would have included Rachel Shukert – if you are a fan of YA fiction set in Old Hollywood with a strong feminist bent, order her Starstruck books immediately. Lady Gaga would also have been a couple of years below me, and I’m sure we would have bonded over our Wheeling roots and cowritten ice musicals designed to star Johnny Weir. I’d loved the campus. The Brown Science building (which I would probably never set foot in because I am crap at math and science to a degree that I’m positive all those badass STEM ladies judge me for single handedly holding back the sisterhood) once housed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which was my childhood favorite labor union strike/workplace disaster. All nine year old girls have a favorite labor union strike/workplace disaster. It is not weird and morbid at all.

You know what else is not weird or morbid? Chillaxing in your best friend’s back yard in November while you’re both wearing your Civil War finest.

And, of course, I loved the city. The extensive public transportation system meant that I’d get a four year pass on driving, and I planned to hang out at Coney Island High and the legendary CBGB’s a lot.  (Oh, and also study and soak up culture and stuff).

I’d eventually decide I was unable to attend (the crippling debt that potentially faced me upon graduation terrified me, and, in the Grand Tradition of Stupid Decisions Made By Teenage Girls With Low Self Esteem, my boyfriend’s less than thrilled reaction to my acceptance played a bigger role in my decision that I’d like to admit), but at that moment in late May of 1999 I was still eagerly contemplating making the city my home.

The plan for the French IV trip was to take a school van up to the city early in the morning, do some casual site seeing, hit up the 2 pm matinee of Les Mis, and then visit the French Impressionists gallery at the Met before returning home in the late evening. Thus, my outfit for the day clearly had to be chosen very, very carefully – something that would stay comfortable for hours, be suitable for a variety of activities, and, most importantly, would not scream, “Hey y’all! I’m on a high school class trip from South Central Pennsylvania!”

This skirt does nothing but scream, “Hey y’all! I’m on a high school class trip from South Central Pennsylvania!” 

I really have no excuse for this skirt, except that, for a period in the late Nineties, people apparently wanted to embrace their inner Mennonites. My cargo skirt did have drawstrings on the sides, kind of like Rosario Dawson in Death Proof, which turned me from “Marriage Ready Mennonite” to “Wayward Mennonite Who is Concerning Her Parents With Her Life Choices.”

Paint your bumper black, motherfucker!

It also allowed me to show off my favorite shoes – a pair of brown Doc Martens my grandma had bought me for Christmas.  “Your feet are going to get hot in those shoes,” my mother said to me as she was dropping me off at school that day, with Cher auto warbling “Do you believe in life after love?” on the car’s radio. I rolled my eyes at her, because FASHUN. (My feet totally got hot in those shoes). Topping the ensemble off was a boned button up blouse with a square cut neckline and puffed sleeves that I could wear off the shoulder if I really wanted to try to push dress code. Green, to match my eyes.

My eyes were the one feature I had that would sometimes be complimented by other people – which was still kind of a novel sensation for me. In fact, at the accepted students’ luncheon at NYU, the very attractive waiter pouring water into my glass murmured, “Your eyes are mesmerizing” as he leaned over my shoulder. This caused me to emit a short, startled laugh that sounded not unlike a barking seal and suddenly become very, very interested in buttering my dinner roll, because a) that sure as hell was not the sort of thing I usually heard from my peers and b) seriously dude, my dad is, like, sitting right there.

By senior year I had reached a kind of uneasy camaraderie with my classmates. They accepted me as a member of the class, and would probably have sent me a card or something if I were in a hideous disfiguring car accident, but I wasn’t really a part of the class. Senior year, to me, felt like being on another planet filled with mostly benign aliens – I was tolerated as part of the ecosystem, but I definitely wasn’t one of the natives. As a result, I spent the ride up to New York folded into a corner of the van with my forehead pressed against the window, watching Pennsylvania, and then New Jersey, go by as I listed to the soundtrack from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet on my Discman while my classmates chatted amongst themselves. When we reached New York, I tucked the Discman into my purse – a child sized tote bag my mom had bought me in 1985 when she took me to see Sesame Street Live at the Wheeling Civic Center. The bag also held some spending money for the day, a dark maroon lipstick I hadn’t been allowed to wear for that year’s family portrait because “you’re not looking like the undead in our Christmas card!” and my two favorite books, Helter Skelter and In Cold Blood, which I intended to occupy myself with at lunch. Lunch wound up being in Rockefeller Center, where my French teacher wisely told us to grab something from a vendor that looked clean and then meet back at the Atlas statue before we headed to the theatre.

I perched on a ledge near the flags that surround the Lower Plaza with some falafel and had just opened Helter Skelter when I saw him standing on the 49th Street side of the Plaza. Was that…?

Oh.

Oh my God.

That was Joey Ramone! Wasn’t it? Maybe. He was kind of far away, but he was certainly towering over everyone around him, and he definitely had long black hair and was wearing sunglasses. It had to be him. Right? Or, maybe, at this distance, Howard Stern. One or the other.

I should go talk to him!

But, oh God, what if he was busy? What if I said something incredibly stupid, which was highly likely? Or, worse, what if it wasn’t him at all?

There were a few possible scenarios that could play out here:

1. It is him. I say something witty and wise beyond my years. (Actual words to be determined, but they will definitely not be: “You have beautiful hands. Do you want some of my falafel?”). He will reply, “I am not at all creeped out by our thirty year age difference and wanna be your boyfriend.  Please pass the tahini sauce.” Probability: Quite low.

2. It is him. He is deep in conversation with, say, his manager about a Very Important Business Matter, and I will hover awkwardly nearby until I slink away in a cloud of shame. Probability: Quite high.

Like so. From jeffryhyman.tumblr.com

3. It is Howard Stern. I will realize it just a touch too late and try to abort the mission, but Howard Stern will see me and then begin making fun of me, which he will continue to do on his radio show for several weeks. Probability: Just high enough to be a real concern.

4. It is neither Joey Ramone nor Howard Stern. It is a bike messenger who is really fucking tired of hearing that he looks like Joey Ramone and/or Howard Stern and will yell at me until I cry. Probability: Also quite high.

Thus paralyzed with fear, I watched Joey/Howard/bike messenger hug the person he was talking to and head to the NBC entrance of the GE Building. “Definitely not Joey,” I decided. “Why would he even be here anyway?”

Except he was on Conan O’Brien about a month later…but that is clearly a total coincidence.

Right?

Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion!

Going Through a Tight Wind

All Good Cretins Go To Heaven . Photo by Dan Hearn.

Tommy Ramone is dead and I feel like I just got punched in the gut.

I spent much of my childhood in a house off Stoolfire Road in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia. You didn’t HAVE to drive through a truck stop to get there, but doing so would get you home much, much faster. Cable TV was not an option – not in the mid Eighties, anyway. We got about three TV channels – maybe four, if there was decent cloud coverage. Maybe because there weren’t really any other options, or maybe because they knew what they were doing, my parents kept the turntable on the family hi fi spinning almost constantly, with the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and a bit of Alice Cooper in heavy rotation, depending on whose bowling night it was. In the car, it was 3WS out of Pittsburgh and a steady stream of the Ronettes, the Crystals, Lesley Gore, Jan and Dean. I still remember my parents howling with laughter as I sang along to “Hanky Panky” by Tommy James and the Shondells while we were parked in our white ’77 Thunderbird (a boat of a car if there ever was one) in the lot of Wheeling, West Virgina’s Federal Building shortly after picking up my dad after another beat as a proud member of Wheeling’s Finest. We were going to go to diCarlo’s, for pepperoni rolls, but I don’t think Mom trusted herself to drive until after I finished backing up the Shondells. They needed me. And, Jesus, Solid Gold Saturday nights in the basement while Dad worked on the Shelby and I flung myself around like a tool to “Do You Wanna Dance?” and “My Boyfriend’s Back.” A particularly rousing session to Chris Montez’ “Let’s Dance” took out my cardboard playhouse.

I was five or six when I discovered MTV, on a Friday night visiting Mom and Dads’ best friends, who lived “in town,” and had cable. I was fascinated by Debbie Harry of Blondie and Cyndi Lauper of…well…Cyndi Lauper, and soon began basing any sartorial choice I was allowed to make for myself on what I thought they might do. And then, one night, laying on my belly in front of the Timmons’ TV with their son Chris, I saw “Rock and Roll High School.”

My first thought was that the Ramones sounded like a distillation of every song I’d ever heard coming out of the living room speakers, the car stereo, my dad’s transistor – but faster, and with a beat I could feel in the pit of my stomach. They played “Do You Wanna Dance!” And I’d never wanted to dance more in my life! And then they blew up the school! They were SO COOL. My second thought was that I really, really wanted Joey Ramone to be my boyfriend someday, but that’s a subject for another day.

I had dalliances with other music – later, when we moved to Baltimore and got cable television of our very own, my mom would yell up the stairs to me that Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” video was on MTV, and I’d bop around the living room. There was an ill advised and thankfully brief infatuation with the New Kids on the Block. I choreographed a number of clever and highly technical dance routines to the extensive catalog of Paula Abdul and reveled in hissing the “nasty boys!” part of Janet Jackson’s opus by the same name. I actually couldn’t even find the Ramones that much – MTV didn’t show “Rock and Roll High School” anymore, and God knows they were missing entirely on the radio, but they were always there in the back of my head – a snippet of “Blitzkrieg Bop” on a beer commercial here, Joey popping up on the “Sun City” video there, and one glorious day when I caught the “Pet Sematary” video while waiting out a commercial break during a block of “Gilligan’s Island” on TBS (airing at 4:05 and 4:35!).

And then I became an adolescent, and oh my God, it was so. fucking. awful. I discovered old Hollywood, and started spending as much time as I could there, which was infinitely preferable to my actual life, which consisted of being a pale social outcast with a huge forehead and oily hair who was freakishly good at English while being simultaneously freakishly bad at math. Any Debbie Harry/Cyndi Lauper based visions I had of myself were completely eradicated. I took refuge in Judy Garland and Jean Harlow and Clark Gable and practiced being wry and doing pin curls. Even then, I remembered the Ramones one day when I least expected it – watching Tod Browning’s 1932 film “Freaks” and recognizing the “One of us!” chant from “Pinhead.”

By high school I was a full on misanthrope and locking myself in my room to mope and listen to Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead. I wished there was something real and acknowledged that I was a freak, I was a weirdo-o-o with every fiber of my shriveled up heart. There was a power almost, and definitely a relief, in being able to wallow in my outsider status. It felt good to know that it wasn’t just me who kept finding herself completely at odds with the Sports! Shopping at the Gap! Prom Queen! scene at school. I remember feeling so diametrically opposed to everything I was supposed to want to be, which made every single cheerleading practice I went to an exercise in total existential angst. I wanted to be sedated – which I didn’t even realize until the seminal Rayanne Graff/Jordan Catalano incident on “My So Called Life.” The Ramones strike again!

That moment brought me back to them, big time. The Ramones were bored, they were misfits, and they were loud about it – and it was a blast. Trent Reznor may have made me feel less lonely when he asked God “Am I not living up to what I’m supposed to be?” but the Ramones made me feel fucking GREAT about it. “But she just couldn’t stay/she had to break away/Well New York City really has it all/oh yeah oh yeah/Sheena is a punk rocker now.” Rock ON. Fuck sports! Fuck the Gap! Fuck Prom Queen! Fuck worrying so much about who I’m supposed to be and just BE!

I was 19 when Joey Ramone died of cancer in 2001. I’d been recently diagnosed with MS and it wasn’t until after his death that I learned of his many health struggles – both physical and mental – some of which bore an eerie similarity to my own. Somehow that made it hurt worse. I remember watching the Academy Awards montage of Who’s Who in This Year’s Crop of Dead People (an admitted annual highlight for me – fandom of old Hollywood means that at least two of your favorites are probably going to be featured each year) and starting to cry when I saw his face, with “The Long and Winding Road” by the Beatles playing in the background. It just didn’t seem fair. He wasn’t very old, and he’d eased so much of my pain while keeping his own hidden. And it especially didn’t seem fair that he didn’t get to see the Ramones get the recognition they deserved. But the others – bassist Dee Dee, guitarist Johnny, and original drummer Tommy, were still around, as were replacement drummers Marky and Richie (and Clem Burke of Blondie, who did two gigs as Elvis Ramone, if you want to count that) and replacement bassist CJ. They got to see the Ramones inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That was something to hold onto.

Except Dee Dee died of a heroin overdose (which, ok, probably everyone maybe saw that coming) in 2002 and Johnny Ramone (who, ok, maybe was a bit of a dick) succumbed to prostate cancer in 2004. So that left Tommy. Tommy, who taught himself to play the drums when Joey couldn’t keep up and no one else had the stripped down, non-pretentious style they demanded. Tommy, who bugged Johnny and Dee Dee to start a band until they finally gave in and plunked down about $80 each on a cheap Mosrite and a Danelectro. Tommy, who fought to make six foot six Joey, with legs encompassing about two thirds of his body, the most unlikely and unforgettable front man in rock history. Tommy, who started a ball rolling without which the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Social Distortion, Bad Brains, and who knows how many other would probably not exist – or at least, not as we know them.

And now Tommy’s gone, too. They’re all gone – all the original members, and even Arturo Vega, they guy who designed that Presidential Seal t-shirt the kid with the skinny jeans and the emo hair (do the kids today still have emo hair? Is that a thing?) who lives next door and wasn’t even born until after the Ramones played their last show in 1996 probably got at Hot Topic. (Full disclosure: three of my Ramones shirts also came from Hot Topic). It’s incredibly sad. And it’s not fair.

But the Ramones? They’re not dead. They’re in every group of misfit kids who turn their amps up as loud as they can in the garage before their mom yells at them to turn it down because Mrs. Schliftenplantz from down the street has already called twice to complain. They’re in every accountant sitting in hideous rush hour traffic who turns up “Beat on the Brat” and reminds himself that, inside, he never sold out. They’re in every girl who grits her teeth and makes it through another day in high school hell because it’s not always gonna be like this. And, thank God, they’re in the parents who hand their kids a copy of “Rocket to Russia” because the corporate sludge on the radio isn’t a shot in anyone’s arm except for maybe Justin Bieber’s.

Thanks, Tommy. Thanks, Joey. Thanks, Dee Dee. Thanks, Johnny. Thanks Marky and Richie and CJ for keeping the fires burning. I just hope you all know it mattered.

It mattered so fucking much.