"A Farewell to Johnny Ramone"

Two things about this column: the first is that when it came out I was well-known for mixing pop-culture with politics. At Planet, we had a neo-con columnist. He could write very well, but he was also a tool that didn't know when to shut up. He ignored everything I said to go online and try to start something, asking if I knew that Johnny was a Republican. Of course I knew. I'm a Ramones fan. Johnny Ramone was one of the best-known conservative rockers ever. I don't care. He was a guitar god and that's what I was writing about. Idiot. The second point is that I name-checked Ja Rule, and man, did I get that one wrong.

Death and rock ‘n’ roll have always meshed. There is some primal element to rock, and rap, and heavy metal, and the blues that fits neatly with the Great Beyond. The only other aspect of the universe that affects rock ‘n’ roll so much is sex, but that’s because almost every kind of music is about sex: about getting some (rock), about not getting some (blues), about getting it from the neighbor’s wife (country), or getting it gently, romantically, and with candles (folk). Many ancient pieces of music were hymns to God, a celebration of prayer to a higher being, but I believe that some of them were asking for something a bit more earthy. And who doubts that Beethoven didn’t perform his creations hoping to nail that front row fraulein?

Music connects with sex and death more than with just the “gettin’ horizontal” ideas. Musicians of almost every style exist at the center of a triad of “music,” “sex,” and “death”, which is why their lives tend to focus on three things: the music itself, who they sleep with, and how they die. It’s a dramatic, dynamic combination. Understand that these things work in concert – so to speak – and you’ll understand why heavy metal will not lead a kid to kill himself, why rap music won’t make you pop a cap in whitey, and why Goths are simply harmless sorts whose rebellion has the heft of the Bobby Fuller Four fightin’ the law.

(Of course, Bobby Fuller got whacked by the underworld for macking on a Connected Guy’s woman; just another dramatic combination of sex, death, and rock ‘n’ roll, but I digress.)

I’m in middle age, so I’ve seen some of my favorites shuffle off their mortal coil, some in dramatic fashion, some in simple, mundane ways. The passing of The Who’s John Entwhistle bummed me out for days and I admit to having a right manly cry when Freddie Mercury went away. But I’m not a baby boomer, so some of the Music Gods of the boomer firmament just don’t bother me.

The boomer’s Holy Trinity of ex-musicians is Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. Their deaths thirty-odd years ago were all seen as tragic. Yeah, well, I think if they were all still alive now, only Jimi would be worth a damn. I can see him working with Slash, with B.B., or with Ja Rule, in competition with Clapton as The Great One. And he would still rock much, much harder than Slowhand.

Judging by the direction the Doors were going, I’d lay a wager that Jim Morrison, were he still alive, would be as well regarded as Alan Parsons; that is to say, not so much. And Pearl would almost certainly have found her niche with those incense sniffers of Lilith Fair.

The Beatles? That’s a little different. I would personally send that credit-scamming McCartney into the Strawberry Fields forever for one more song by Lennon or Harrison.

When a well-known musician dies, there is a period of public mourning, the magazine covers and days of water-cooler discussion. This is as it should be. But for me, it’s often the death of the utility player, the talented musician who was never in the spotlight that is the hardest thing to take. Entwhistle was one.

Johnny Ramone was another. With his death last week, the classic three-front of the Ramones is gone. The band that made it to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame without a hit single or Top 40 album is no more. The band that kick-started punk and created the CBGB sound is no longer with us.*

Music fans know that Joey died in 2001 of cancer and most know that Dee Dee O.D.’d the next year (not going to do what Joey did, I suppose). But it was Johnny’s death by cancer that bothers me the most. He was, in many ways, the glue that held the band together. It was his guitar work that created the Ramones sound. He stayed neutral in the Joey-Dee Dee tiffs. And when he decided to retire in 1996, he brought an end to the band’s career before it became a parody of itself. Without Johnny, there could be no “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker,” no “I Wanna Be Sedated,” and certainly no “Do You Remember Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio?” No one else sounded like him. His retirement meant the end of the Ramones as a performing act.

His death means the end of the Ramones, period. Johnny never set out to be a rock star. And he did just that. He was a great guitarist in a great band. He did what he wanted to do, he succeeded at it, he maintained dignity and style, and he will be remembered.

But he won’t get the magazine covers and he won’t get the water-cooler discussion. I suppose, as a Ramone, he’d be used to that. And that’s all right, too.

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*Yeah, yeah, I haven’t forgotten Tommy or Marky (or to a lesser extent, C.J. or Richie), but Johnny, Joey, and Dee Dee were the core of the band.

Gabba gabba hey, Pinheads! Let’s Blitzkreig Bop down to Rockaway Beach and do the Cretin Hop! Barring that, let’s go to planetweekly and thank our lucky stars for the Ramones.

"Bumper Sticker Politics or the Band That Scared Your Mom has Sold Out

This one is dated, too, but because of the ads I mention. I'll also mention that at least one blogger out there plagiarized my column, lifting my lines about Iggy Pop word for word. It was pointed out to Planet Weekly by half a dozen different readers, who found two sites that had done it. One had written-and-displayed two weeks after me, and the other was done five weeks later. We don't know if the second guy plagiarized me or the other guy, which is why I said there was "at least" one blogger who ripped me off. I don't care. It's nice to have written something good enough to have been stolen.

There is a certain segment of the population whose – how shall we say it? – stupidity prevents them from being able to separate who a person is from what they do, and who a person is from what they believe. They’re unable to see someone as a whole, instead defining them by a particular belief, or by something they do. What could be a good neighbor is instead dismissed as a “dirty liberal.” What could be a good friend is shouldered aside because he supports capital punishment.

(I am put in mind of a particular mouthbreather who visited our Web site and insisted that he would refuse roadside assistance from anyone with a Kerry/Edwards sticker on his or her car, which made me wonder what he does to everyone in the service industry. “Hey, you in the Che shirt! I’ll pump my own gas, punk!” “Excuse me, miss, before you bring the menu, do you believe in a faith-based nation or should I change tables?”)

Every year, I go to a friend’s Oscar-night party, which frankly kicks. The party is an odd combination of artsy folks and serious churchgoers. Two TVs are turned on in two different rooms, and the party tends to separate into camps: the libs and the thumpers. Every year, every time the camera pans across Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, you will hear boos coming from only one room. It doesn’t matter how skilled an actor or actress is. It only matters if they agree.

This is not just a one-sided thing. Many liberals boo and hiss every time Patricia Heaton of Everybody Loves Raymond comes on, since she is vehemently pro-life. I even had a conversation with one lefty who spent a full hour bitching and moaning about conservatives who slammed liberal celebrities. When I brought up Ms. Heaton, she said, “I hate her. I hate everything she stands for.” All of which goes to prove that sheer stupidity sees no political borders.

Oddly enough, there does appear to be one blind spot that almost no one sees, and that, quite surprisingly, is in pop music. Or rather, perhaps not so surprisingly, it is in pop music advertising. There are times when my jaw sags open at the music being used to sell cars, computers, and vacations. Beatles’ music has been used a while and The Who has whored out about forty ‘leven different songs to sell everything from Hummers (“Happy Jack”) to headlights (“I Can See For Miles”). Time has neutered the impact these bands have made, so they’re now thought of as Great Old Ones instead of as the drug-chewing, instrument-smashing madmen they used to be. It’s kind of sad, and they’re not the best examples.

Led Zeppelin sells Cadillacs. The band that your mother told you would send you to Hell just by listening to it is triggering Pavlovian responses in her head to buy an Escalade. Aerosmith just started doing the same for Buick. (And by the way, admen who say the car should be the sexiest thing in the ad have just been proven wrong by that woman in the LaCrosse commercial – damn.) Thin Lizzy, the original enigmatic Irish band, and one that generated an indefinable, low-level terror among parents, shills for Capitol One. And Elton John* is now giving it up for one of those satellite radio groups.

It gets better. Hewlett Packard is using The Cure in their ads. When I was but a wee lad, even being caught with a Cure cassette was enough to trigger a frantic series of questions by a horrified ‘rent: “What’s wrong with you?” “Do you need a psychiatrist?” “Are you gay?” Now Mummy and Daddy say, “What a lovely song,” and feel an urge to buy a printer.

The Boston metal band Godsmack provides music for the U.S. Navy ads. This amuses the hell out of me, because Godsmack’s front man is an actual honest-to-Goddess Wiccan priest. That’s right, folks: Wicca is being used to recruit swabbies. Let us share a chuckle at the adman who slipped that one past the U.S. Government.

Queen has been used twice in recent months. “I Want to Break Free” was used to shill one of those new low-carb sodas. (The video showed the band cross-dressing; just thought I’d share that.) And “I’m in Love with My Car” has been used to sell another kind of car. That one fools people because it’s not Freddie Mercury singing; it’s drummer Roger Taylor. Time has been kind to these men, too, turning them into a band whose shelf life began with Wayne’s World, instead of being remembered as the freaky foursome whose over-the-top gay front man is reported to have visited a Thai boy brothel and yelled to the management: “I think I’ve broken this one! Fetch me another!”

My favorite is Iggy Pop. His “Lust for Life” has been selling cruises for over a year now. Cruises! This is the psycho punk pioneer who shot heroin into his eyeball, who slashed himself with broken bottles for audience amusement and his own boredom, who used to beat up his fans, and who may very well have played a game of Hide the Grammy with David Bowie. This guy did enough drugs that some of his veins actually exploded. I don’t think his Lust for Life is quite the same as those on the cruise set.

I admit that I enjoy shattering illusions**, but I don’t think that knowing these things will affect what car you buy. If it does, then I suggest you get the extended warranty on whichever one you do purchase, because you never know who is going to have a Kerry/Edwards sticker on theirs.

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*Elton is a very strange case. The man who defined homosexuality for years and who has only become more flamboyant has suddenly become one of ‘them gay folks’ that people think it’s okay to like, along with Ellen Degeneres and Rosie O’Donnell.

**Next time: Santa Claus’ political affiliations.