Punk Rock Blitzkrieg

by Marky Ramone

  “Yeah, what’s up?” Dee Dee said.

  “You cannot have marijuana in there. Do you read the rules?”

  He was a Vietnamese gentleman who had probably stared death in the face on more than one occasion, so staring Dee Dee in the face didn’t faze him. And he didn’t faze Dee Dee.

  “Hey, chief,” Dee Dee said. “I don’t know what you’re on, but I’m clean and I’m trying to get some sleep.”

  “I’m calling the police. You hear me?”

  “Call the police,” Dee Dee said. “You think that does anything for me? All over half a joint that’s already been smoked? This is LA. Don’t you guys have some rapes and murders to worry about?”

  “You must get out today.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  But Dee Dee came to his senses once the owner walked into the stairwell. If we weren’t looking for publicity, we definitely didn’t need this. We packed up our clothes, toiletries, and the pot. The air purifier was the only remains.

  I dropped by John’s house and was glad to see he was enjoying a peaceful life. He had his LA friends, who showed him everything from respect to worship. John had become more accepting in his views of people and situations. He still collected movie and sports memorabilia and of course kept up with the business end of the Ramones, which over the years had taken on a life of its own. The one thing John didn’t want to do was go somewhere and play guitar—not in an arena or in a club Dee Dee and Marky were playing that night. The way John saw it, when the Ramones hung it up, he hung up his guitar, period. The more time away he spent, the rustier he got and the less he wanted to expose himself to any sort of comparison.

  I understood all of that. What I didn’t understand, even after all the animosities of the past, was why he didn’t want to give Joey a call once in a blue moon. We all knew Joey was struggling with the chemotherapy, and as much as we believed he would beat his illness, I had to remind John that a simple thing like a three-minute phone call could sometimes do more for a person than all the IV tubes in the world. John told me no flat out. He and Joey had nothing to talk about.

  One early morning in late 1999 Joey and I had lunch a couple of blocks from his apartment on East Ninth Street. Joey looked pale and weak, but I had gotten used to seeing him that way recently. If anything, today was a great day simply because he was up and around on his own two feet and moving about town. Joey had been in and out of the hospital lately, getting more chemo and trying to build back some strength. Lately, we had been meeting under very different conditions.

  Working on his solo album seemed to work a lot better than chemo. The recording studio was in New Jersey, and Joey insisted on being there whether he was having a good day or not. That included days when he had to be driven directly from the hospital. The album was his baby and he was going to see it through, no matter what.

  I already had my roadie get my drums out of the rental space and load them into the studio. I was there to do half a dozen songs or as many as I could before I left to go on tour with my own band, the Intruders. Daniel Rey and I tried to make it as easy as possible for Joey in the studio. I came in having learned the songs off of a demo tape and was ready to lay them down. Joey would usually sit and record a scratch vocal for us to follow. He could lay down a polished vocal on whatever day or days he happened to feel strong.

  The project had a good, solid sixties rock-pop feel. Some of songs reminded us a little of the early Who. “What a Wonderful World,” originally recorded by Louis Armstrong, was about the most positive take on the beauty of this earth ever put forward in song. When I heard Joey sing it breathily in the studio, I pictured him singing it much more sweetly and smoothly, in his mind, as he looked out the window of a hospital room. I thought about the title track on the album: “Don’t Worry About Me.” I tried not to. But I did.

  December 31 was normally a good day for the Ramones. We were usually playing a New Year’s Eve show at the Palladium or somewhere else special. On that day in the year 2000, however, Joey was leaving his apartment in the morning, and there was snow on the ground. He slipped and went down hard. Something popped, and he couldn’t get up, so he lay there in the slush moaning and groaning. A young woman walking along looked down, looked back up, and passed him by. Then an old man. Then a few more pedestrians. They might have thought he was drunk, homeless, or both. Regardless, no one reached out to help the legendary Joey Ramone until a woman police officer on foot eventually stopped and radioed for help.

  Joey was taken to the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine on East Thirty-Fourth Street near the FDR Drive. His hip was broken, possibly because the chemo had weakened his bones. I called him as often as I could and followed his progress. He was transferred from this hospital to that one and back again for various complications. He had hip surgery in one facility and rehab in another. Then back out for cancer treatment. Somewhere along the line, Joey had picked up a hospital infection that was giving him a high fever, compromising his immune system, and wreaking havoc with the cancer.

  When I pulled my car up to the Rusk Institute on a cold snowy evening in late February, I was lucky to get a spot. There was never enough sidewalk in New York, especially around hospitals. I picked up a pass at the visitor’s desk and went up to the fourth floor to see Joey. He was on his back looking emaciated, but he smiled when I walked in. I was bearing gifts.

  Joey always loved Marion’s cooking, especially her oatmeal and her chocolate chip cookies. I sat down on the edge of the bed and placed a tin of cookies on the night table. Then I pulled a boom box out of the Styrofoam packing and set it up next to the cookies. Joey looked excited like a kid from Forest Hills on Hanukkah and asked me if I brought any CDs. Of course, I said. I showed him a handful of sixties rock and pop albums, and Joey’s eyes zeroed in on a Dusty Springfield CD.

  We started to talk, but I was distracted for a moment. I looked around the room, and there was very little. When I had picked up the boom box and the CDs I thought it was a nice gesture but that I would basically be adding items to the pile. There was no pile. There was no other boom box. That to me was startling and sad. Leaving Joey without music was like leaving Linus without a blanket.

  We discussed his solo album and how it was going. I told him I thought it kicked ass and that we were all looking forward to his getting the hell out of the hospital soon enough and holding a release party. Joey smiled and then stopped to consider something. Out of the blue, he asked me if I thought there would ever be a Ramones reunion. I told him that, like everyone else, I was having fun doing what I wanted to do, but if anything like that ever came along, all he had to do was pick up the phone and call me.

  I thought it was a strange question considering not only how we ended but also the fact that he and John hadn’t spoke even once in years. Maybe, I thought, the idea of a reunion, however improbable, gave Joey a little more hope and strength lying here in a hospital bed. Wherever the notion had come from, Joey then asked me a question that caught me far more off guard.

  “Where is everyone else?”

  I knew what he meant. Where are the other Ramones? Regarding John, a telephone call was a long shot and a visit was a moon shot. Dee Dee owed him a visit, but it seemed like he just didn’t want to deal with Joey’s mortality. Tommy was a mystery. I couldn’t figure it out. Ultimately, I couldn’t worry about it. I was here. What I also couldn’t do was let Joey down any further, so I changed the subject.

  “You know they still love us down in Buenos Aires.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Definitely. They still go fucking wild over ‘Sheena’ and everything else.”

  “That’s cool.”

  At that moment, Joey’s nurse walked in. She was a pleasant-looking African American woman of about forty. She stood close enough to the bed so that her knee almost brushed against mine. She tilted her head down slightly, and we made eye contact.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Can you move over just a bit?”

  “Sure,” I
said. “No problem.”

  “It’s time for his bath.”

  I slid down toward the foot of the bed and turned my body to allow clearance for Joey’s long legs. As Joey leaned his head forward slightly, the nurse slipped her left hand under his thighs and her entire right arm under his back. She was an average-size woman, not particularly powerful looking, but our lead singer was lifted right up off the mattress and gently into the wheelchair alongside the bed.

  As the nurse pushed the wheelchair, I followed them a few steps out into the hallway and then stopped. She continued pushing the chair as I stood and watched. Just as they prepared for a left-hand turn around a corner, Joey managed to swing around to face in my direction. It was a struggle, but he waved to me. I waved back. Then he disappeared.

  I stepped back into the room for a moment to get my jacket off the back of a chair. As I grabbed the jacket, I glanced out the window and saw my car. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had parked directly below Joey’s window. In some small way, we were in tune. The frequency coming from him was very faint.

  I called John the next day.

  “You need to visit him. The window is closing.”

  “Let it close,” John said.

  “C’mon, John.”

  “I’m out here on the West Coast anyway.”

  “Don’t tell me that. We spent half our lives on this flight and that one. You can get on a plane an hour from now. And I’m sure you can find plenty of things to do while you’re here in New York.”

  “He’s not my friend,” John said.

  “Who cares if he’s your friend?” I said. “That’s not the point. We’re past that now. He’s dying. So you don’t like him. Big fucking deal. How about the fact that you practically grew up together? How about the fact that you were in a band together for twenty-two years? How about all the songs he wrote that helped you in your career? How about the fact that without Joey you wouldn’t have had a career?”

  “Look,” John said, “I hope he beats the thing.”

  Joey passed away a few weeks later, on April 15. In life, death and taxes were assured, and this time they came on the same day. No matter how much you prepared mentally for a thing like this, you never really knew how you were going to feel until it happened. Even then, you weren’t sure because the shock was just setting in.

  The first thing I felt was sadness over how he wouldn’t get to see his album released. Then I considered how many other things he would miss, and the album seemed like just a speck of sand. My mind drifted past any of the events, honors, and awards that had been discussed lately. As both Louie and Joey sang, it was a wonderful world. But I had a hard time imagining a world where Joey wasn’t somewhere quietly listening to a Dusty Springfield song and smiling.

  One thing that never changed about John was his methodical thinking about how to get the Ramones to the next level. Our first year of eligibility for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was coming up in 2002. Gary Kurfirst had just let John know that the Ramones were invited to receive an MTV Lifetime Achievement Award on September 6, 2001. In John’s baseball mind, that was a warm-up—a bullpen session—before the Hall of Fame voting.

  John actually made two calls to the bullpen—one to me, and one to C.J., who he wanted to accept Dee Dee’s award. We were the only Ramones he wanted alongside him at the MTV awards. He had thought it out. Joey was obviously gone, and Dee Dee might embarrass us and screw up the Hall of Fame voting. John pointed out Dee Dee’s erratic behavior at the final Ramones show in Los Angeles. I told John without Dee Dee’s erratic behavior there would have been no Ramones.

  Besides, Dee Dee and I were playing in the Remainz. Dee Dee had leveled out. Dee Dee was the Ramones. He deserved to be there. John explained it was too late. The arrangements were made. I told John that as much as I disagreed with the decision, I would be there. When I put down the receiver, a strange thought occurred to me: No one had even mentioned Tommy.

  The event organizers had us enter through the Lincoln Center garage rather than on the red carpet to keep the lifetime achievement award “a secret.” But after many years of being shoved aside, the plan felt oddly like a snub. And after going along with the Dee Dee snub, maybe somehow we had it coming to us.

  Among other things, Dee Dee missed a cocktail hour and Britney Spears parading around in a diamond-studded jungle outfit with a boa constrictor wrapped around her neck. He missed Johnny Ramone’s new entourage—Lisa Marie Presley, her fiancé Nicolas Cage, and their contingent of bodyguards. He missed Johnny Ramone and his dark Elvis shades that looked like they were purchased for $5.95 at the Graceland gift shop. It seemed John and his wife were now very age-conscious and were maybe hiding a few wrinkles.

  When it was time to talk to the press and take photos, I started walking toward the media room on instinct. But my instinct and John’s sense of control were two different things. He grabbed me and told me I needed to wait for C.J., who was lingering back near the bar. At that point I drew the line.

  “John,” I said. “This isn’t 1978. I’m not Joey. I’m not Dee Dee. I’m not Monte. We’re not in the van. News flash—the Ramones are over. It’s nice that we’re here. But the band is over.”

  The award presentation took place in the Metropolitan Opera House. There was probably no building on the planet less appropriate for giving the Ramones a lifetime achievement award, but there we were—John, C.J., me, and Bono, who was presenting the award—exiting a Plexiglas tube worthy of the movie This Is Spial Tap. As my feet touched the stage I unconsciously began dancing to “Blitzkrieg Bop.” I wasn’t sure exactly why, but I was sure Dee Dee would have liked it.

  Lisa Marie Presley sprung for a reception at the elegant Hudson Hotel a few blocks away. Bodyguards, including the massive southern dude assigned to me and Marion, ringed our table like a force field. Lisa Marie, Nicolas Cage, and even the punk god Johnny Ramone seemed perfectly comfortable inside. But Marion and I were suffocating. Just beyond the force field were our true people—Monte, Arturo, and Danny Fields, who was getting very emotional about missing Joey. They were literally barred from entry. So Marion and I made our move. We busted out of the cell to talk to our friends. Then we busted out of the hotel. It felt at least as good as getting the award.

  In one sense John was right about Lincoln Center being a warm-up. Leather jackets and the Waldorf Astoria never really went together, but then again neither did punk rock and anything you might call a hall of fame. None of that mattered on March 18, 2002, when the Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The doors to the Hall opened on cue—just over twenty-five years since the release of the first album. As far as individual eligibility was concerned, the voting members elected Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy, and me.

  John made sure he was seated at a different table from Joey’s mother, Charlotte, and her other son, Mitchell. Before we were called up to the podium, John avoided any kind of contact with either of them. I thought that deserved an award for callousness. They had recently lost a son and a brother and were there to celebrate what that person had accomplished. I wasn’t a believer in life after death, but animosity after death was very real.

  Tommy spoke first and in doing so redeemed John and the entire band. “Believe it or not, we really loved each other even when we weren’t acting civil to each other. We were truly brothers. The honor of our induction into the Hall of Fame means a lot to us. But it really meant everything to Joey.”

  John thanked Seymour Stein, Danny Fields, Gary Kurfirst, and Ramones fans. He ended his brief speech by proclaiming, “God bless President Bush and God bless America.” In a room filled with progressives, this got a lesser round of applause but a decent ovation just the same. The wounds of September 11 were still fresh, wide open, and only blocks away.

  The attacks were deeply personal if you were an American, a New Yorker, or a downtown person. We were all three. As I looked out from our twentieth-floor apartment window through binoculars and watched
the plumes of smoke rising from Ground Zero, I knew what everyone else knew—that things would never be quite the same. But a public gathering of any sort in New York was a celebration and reaffirmation of the city’s and the country’s resilience. For the time being, political differences were suspended just like personal differences in the band should have been.

  “Hi, everybody,” I said. “I’m Marky Ramone, and I want to thank Johnny Ramone for asking me to join the Ramones. And especially Tommy Ramone, who started that drum style that I had to work very hard to duplicate. Thank you very much.” A complete list of the people I wanted to thank would have bumped Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Talking Heads, and all the other deserving artists being inducted that night. Besides, everyone wanted to hear what Dee Dee had to say, and as usual he did not disappoint.

  “Hi, I’m Dee Dee Ramone, and I’d like to congratulate myself, and thank myself, and give myself a big pat on the back. Thank you, Dee Dee. You’re very wonderful. I love you.”

  Maybe John at that moment didn’t agree Dee Dee was so wonderful. Whatever he thought, John and Dee Dee were, now and forever, members of the same hall of fame.

  Before we left the stage, I gave a shout-out to Charlotte and her son, Mitchell. No one else had bothered to. I wasn’t sure whether they were told not to join the rest of us onstage or decided not to, and it didn’t matter. They needed to be acknowledged, so if by keeping my acceptance speech brief, I had a coupon for a few more words, I cashed it in at the right time.

  Once we had all taken our seats, Hall of Fame statues in hand, we noticed something strange. There was a single statue still standing on the podium. I said to Dee Dee, “That must be Joey’s.” It seemed like a prearranged symbolic gesture, but it was simply a mistake. It was not Joey Ramone going back to the stage one last time to tap something. Seymour Stein told Charlotte’s assistant to retrieve the statue and give it to Charlotte. But when he hand-delivered it to Charlotte, she noticed it said “Dee Dee Ramone.” Dee Dee then realized his said “Johnny Ramone.” Tommy and I had the ones engraved for us. That meant John’s statue read “Joey Ramone.” That alone was worth my trip to the induction ceremony.