Joey Ramone Way



Monday after a holiday, and yes, I'd LOVE to be sedated, but I just wanted to mention that Joey got his street near East 2nd and the Bowery yesterday afternoon. Tons of fans came out in the windy cold just to see the unveiling. That's really something.



My dad pointed out the Ramones to me back in 1979. I was 7 years old. Just a few years later, I had my first leather jacket, which I wore proudly. Dad took to the gallery next to CBGB's where there was a slinky tabby cat named "Fish". Fish didn't really dig anyone, but he always sat near my dad. He'd walk across the bar, plunk his tail across my dad's arm and purr wildly. My dad was the only customer who rated such an expenditure of energy and attention, and was quickly recognized as a customer of special value. "That cat likes that guy," they would say. I finally met Fish in 1989. He sniffed, turned his head and ignored me. Ironic that Dad hated cats (and they hated him) until I brought Butchy, our first cat, into the house in 1974. 2 year olds with pleading whines have a tendency to get their own way, I guess. I don't know if Fish is still alive, but that gallery is still there. I'll have to stop in soon.



If Pengo was given classical music, I was given jazz in large amounts. I owe my entire Ellington collection to my father. Sara Vaughn, Carmen McCrea, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Hank Jones, and Phil Schaap were common names in my house. Sunday mornings were about "blue plate special" breakfasts and DixieLand blaring out of the kitchen radio. I swear on my life he managed to find radio stations my dial didn't have! Kentucky Bluegrass, weird Talk radio (waaay before Imus), Opera, Big Band, even metal I can attribute to his fiddling with the dial. I wouldn't even know WSOU if it wasn't for him. "Here. That's a station you'd like." And he was right!



The advent of CD's in 1990-91 affirmed what he secretly desired: a replacement for his cherished music on worn audio cassettes. Many of his tapes snapped entirely. He'd fling them madly with a string of expletives as they smashed upon hitting the wall. When I got my first JVC cd player, I kept him in mind. Dave Grusin did a host of arrangements based on Ellington's and Count Basie's original works. Those were two cd's I jumped at. $10.99 each? Hey, I'll take it. I swear to god, it was like watching the Tasmanian Devil calm down right in front of me. The look of serenity and joy on his face listening (with tear drop-like clarity) to these recordings is really not something I can describe. I was amazed myself at the layer of sound, after listening to garbled and muffled squeaks coming out of the old tape player. I began to collect much of my own stuff. By the age of 21, I had amassed a pretty sizeable Miles Davis stack. Dad hated Miles Davis for his racist views of white men, but respected him as an artist. We both agreed "fusion" wasn't what real jazz was about, but I still pulled out Bitches Brew when he wasn't around. Miles's finest recordings were between 1948-1959, in our opinion. "Yesterdays" always stops me dead in my tracks.



He also showed me punk, for which I'm forever grateful. Wendy O. Williams, Sid and Nancy, Johnny Rotten, and most of what came out of CB's and the East Village in the late 70's was pretty amazing. He enjoyed anything that said "fuck you" to the establishment. He might have been an older man, but his spirit had a ripped t-shirt and a safety pin in his ear!



He spent a lot of time near the Bowery and near Fish. I'm sure he's as happy about Joey's sign as I am.