Hits from Dee Dee Ramone’s Autobiography, Poison Heart

1.     On being in a rehabilitation center: “That was fucked up. They also made me play volleyball. It was a nightmare.”


2.     On quitting the Ramones: “By then I was having a lot of fantasies about jobs […] so I could quit the Ramones. Like being a doorman or a candy store owner, or having a hot dog stand.”


3.     About living by an old graveyard: “Once I went down there to get a loose brick and a dead person’s hand fell out of the hole where the brick had been […] the hand was all bone, but a gold and diamond ring was on its finger […] it must’ve been worth two and a half carats […] the money I got for it at the pawn shop kept me in dope and hostess cupcakes for months.”


4.     On Joey the Artist: “Once Joey bought some fruit and vegetables at the grocery store and used them to do a painting. He churned them in the blender and painted with them—you could either look at the painting or eat it.


5.     On End of the Century: “I still have no idea how [Phil Spector and the Ramones] finished End of the Century, or who actually played bass on it.”  

Dee Dee Ramone Figures Into Things (2)

Dee Dee Ramone Figures Into Things 

(Part 2 of 3) How to Care About It in the Wrong Way 

During a summer rainstorm that you could hear from inside a windowless bar on California near Diversey, I got stuck in a longer conversation between my neighbor, Brian, and a skinhead.
        We were lined up at the stools and initially talked about leather jackets. I wanted to know where Brian bought his. My old jacket got ruined through rips and soakings.
In minutes I lost all footing in the conversation, which had turned to Johnny Thunders, who I knew of only as a tattoo on the arms of bleach headed punks.

        Brian and the skinhead worked me through Johnny Thunders' history with the New York Dolls, into The Heartbreakers and up to his New Orlean's death and posthumous rising stardom in books and record shops.
        Then I remembered what I read in Poison Heart, and I said, "Hey, didn't Johnny Thunders steal a song from Dee Dee Ramone? Was it Chinese Rocks?"
        Then skinhead looked into space.
        "Oh no!" he said. "That has never been established." 
        Seeing this, the bartender stopped pouring a draft and watched us from a few feet away as the skinhead explained to me with the aggression of a man abused that Thunders, as a songwriter, played miles ahead of DeeDee. 
        And further, that the man who fronted The Heartbreakers would never stoop to steal a song in all his life. 
        "Especially not from a Ramone!"
        "But maybe he'd steal your watch for heroin," I guessed. Then I got a dirty look. Eventually, Brian was talking hockey and then I knew it was really time to leave. 

Dee Dee Ramone Figures Into Things

Dee Dee Ramone Figures Into Things

(Part 1 of 3) Where Songs Can Come From

Rather than visit the library or plan a quicker way to teach Huck Finn, I usually slink around collecting stories about bass players, almost exclusively from punk bands. I do it unprofessionally and lazily, but putting the years in perspective, its graduated from coincidence to hobby. How Sting claps slowly, and like a caveman. Or the way Kira Roessler who played bass for five Black Flag albums used to respond to groping fans at shows: by smashing them in the jaw or eye socket with her heavy bass's body, all without missing a note any of the thousands of notes she touched off without a pick.

A recent continuation of this collection has been reading DeeDee Ramone's first book, Poison Heart. My experience oscillated between wanting to light some sage or a sizeable candle to put DeeDee's soul to rest and giggling over his ritual of loss: his headhitting, his life of setback and willpower to whirlpool himself into disasters. (Here place two examples from text).

Born to an unlucky young German mother and an older alcoholic US vet in 50s Berlin, you get the feeling that Dee Dee never had a chance to be anything other than a Ramone. Not a hotdog vendor with a cart in the park nor a candy store owner and not a doorman in a suit, career choices he regretted not choosing.

Regrets like these cause Dee Dee to dash through apartment doors away from police and Phil Spector, and to leap from the tour van into Florida swampland or congested intersections, his fellow bandmates yelling, "Dee Dee, no!" but only half able to dismiss one of the lead songwriters.