It’s been eleven years since Joey Ramone died. He died two weeks before I turned eight and I was probably still playing with Digimon, but the seeds of punk had already been planted in my little pointed head. The soundtrack to the Digimon movie had “The Impression That I Get,” by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones on it, and I would steal my sister’s discman just to listen to that song. Being nine years my senior, she didn’t take too kindly to that. I eventually snagged her Operation Ivy CD too, which led me down a crazy and unforgettable path in life which I’ll be on until the day I die.

So where do The Ramones come in? I’m glad you asked. Aside from being one of the many bands listed under “Influences” for the bands I listened to on AOL Music or whatever paltry mainstream website I’d stumbled upon, I had very little understanding of what The Ramones meant until I finally heard them. The first Ramones album I got was Greatest Hits Live as a Hanukkah gift. To some, that might not even register as a Ramones album, but to me it was the doorway into the world of pinheads, punk rockers, sedation, and three chord songs. The cover had them as cartoon characters with a giant yellow spider web as the backdrop. “Cool,” I thought “The Ramones are like superheroes.”

The first thing I learned about The Ramones was that they were from New York City, where my dad and his family were from. When I read that Joey was only a few months older than my dad, I figured he must have known him growing up, or at least run into him a few times. “They’ve got a song called ‘53rd & 3rd,’have you ever been down that street?” I asked my dad, completely oblivious to the references to male prostitution and heroin in the song.

“No,” he said, “but I went to high school on 57th and 2nd”

“Oh,” I said, “they also have a song that starts out ‘Hanging out on 2nd Avenue,’ did you ever meet a group of brothers with the last name Ramone at school? They were from Forest Hills.”

“ I never met those guys. I was too busy ball-boying at the US Open when I was in Forest Hills.” I couldn’t believe it, my dad was on the court in his tennis whites while these guys were in black leather jackets banging out songs like “Blitzkrieg Bop” a few blocks away. Who would ever pass up rock and roll for a tennis game?

Another present I got that Hanukkah was a book called Jews Who Rock by Guy Oseary. The first page I remember opening to had a picture of none other than Joey Ramone standing there in front of a microphone with his fist in the air. Joey was born Jeff Hyman, which meant The Ramones weren’t related to each other, but I could now say that my favorite rock star was Jewish. When I got to Hebrew school that Wednesday, we were doing a lesson on famous and influential Jews in history. We read short passages on people like Albert Einstein and Menachem Begin that were digestible for an eight or nine year old audience. I raised my hand and asked, “Where’s Joey Ramone?”

The teacher looked at me like I’d just grown another head in the past five seconds. “Who is Joey Ramone?” she asked in her thick Israeli accent. “You know, from The Ramones. Everybody loves The Ramones.” I told her “I don’t think there is such thing as a Ramone, now do your work quietly.” She said I hung my head and kept reading.

About four years later, I met a kid named Brett at Hebrew school who was wearing a shirt with the cover of The Stooges album “Fun House” on it. We got to talking about bands like The Stooges, The Dead Boys, The Misfits, and of course, The Ramones. When he told me he played guitar, I immediately suggested that we form a band. I had played a bit of music with some friends before that, where I just sang badly into a tape recorder and my friends played guitar and drums. Brett was already in a band with some kids that it turned out I knew called Brain Garbage. I went to a house show that they put on, got up and attempted to sing “Kick Out The Jams” by MC5. I couldn’t remember the words, but I was addicted to the energy of the microphone from that point on. When I wanted to thrash around, I studied Iggy Pop and Darby Crash, but when I wanted to keep my balance, I studied Joey Ramone.

There was something about the way Joey curled his fingers around the mic that made me question whether or not he had mild Cerebral Palsy. I was actually disappointed when I found out he didn’t. It would have meant the world to me if one of my early punk rock heroes had CP, especially Joey. I sang “I Wanna Be Sedated” to the doctors when I went under for surgery once because, “Put me in a wheelchair and get me to the show” was exactly how I felt. Joey had his own mental disabilities, so I could partially identify with him there, but I wanted someone to make CP cool like Joey did for being Jewish.

Brett and I formed a band called Media Pigs about a year after the Brain Garbage show. We were fast, loud, young, and angry, like any good thirteen to fourteen year old punk band should be. We were getting into bands like Crass, Nausea, Leftover Crack, and Millions of Dead Cops and eventually decided that The Ramones weren’t “punk enough.” I don’t think I regret saying anything more than when I said “Fuck The Ramones” out loud. I can’t thank Shane from The Living Wrecks enough for telling me that was blasphemy. Eventually, I came back to The Ramones via getting into The New York Dolls and The Velvet Underground. I now can’t go a day without hearing at least one Ramones song and have three Ramones posters hanging on the wall in my bedroom in my parents’ house. One of them is actually an original signed print of the Ramones Mania album cover given to me by George Tabb. I’m never selling it to anyone. Thanks to George, Ginger Coyote, Monte Melnick, and Evil Presly, I know what a kind, caring, and passionate person Joey was in his private life. Joey was not a perfect person by any means, but I know that I’ll spend a good portion of my life keeping his legacy alive.