I recall in college a friend who had been hired as security when
the famed musical collaborative known as the Ramones came
to campus for a show, “I cannot wait for next weekend so
I can bash in a few punk heads.” His eyes sparkled with mayhem.
I was also friends with a future New York City cop, a soon to
be low level bank executive and one guy whose dream it was to
be a middle level manager for the Ford Motor Company.
I remember that as college concluded, the future cop and Mr. Ford
Motor Company kicked my ass in separate drunken incidents.
I could have used the Ramones musical compilation that plays now
as I type in the gray morning darkness.
I could have used Johnny Ramones storming and speeding guitar riffs, the
machine gun rhythm of Dee Dee and Tommy, the looming dangerous, yet sing
song vocals of Joey Ramone.
I could have used the insane, perfect lyrics.
I could have used their music to drown out the pap that blared through the
windows of our off campus housing unit. Stevie Ray Vaughn. Billy Joel.
Robert Cray.
I could have used a good astringent dose of the Ramones,
instead,
I was friends with a rugby winger that found an exquisite joy in
the prospect of bashing Ramones fan skull and injuring someone
because they listened to punk music.
I was a tragically lost young man. Very, very lost indeed.
I am no longer very lost nor tragically lost for that matter. It took
me fifteen years, but I have located the beginnings and indications of
a life path.
I found the Ramones. They have helped. They are not my saviors. I am
my own savior, but they have helped. Three quarters of them are now dead and
I never managed to see them in concert because of you Mr. Rugby and you Mr.
Ford Motor Company and you Mr. NYPD.
I never went to that concert because I was so bent on your receiving approval,
your approval, anyone’s approval, I could never have gone to see
those damned punk fags. I could never have made my own decision. I could
never have gone and gotten my brainpan cracked open by the neo-Nazi rugby
team security staff. I could never have gone and assuaged
my natural curiosity about a band that induced such powerful emotion in
people that had never seen one of their shows or tried to listen to one
of their albums. Such magnificent, irrational hatred! I see now, the scared boys
lashing out at things they do not and perhaps cannot comprehend.
I could never have said it then, but I will say it now:
Fuck Rugby! To be in your club, you twisted fuckers
made people drink beer that had been poured into a
smelly boot down the sweaty ass crack of some inbred halfwit.
Fuck Ford Motor Company! It is no wonder the Japanese have a leg
up on American automobiles. Look at the morons you hire!
Fuck the NYPD! Mindless goons with guns, sticks, pepper spray, brutality coverups,
hung juries and acquittals.
Fuck Stevie Ray Vaughn! I hate you not for your music SRV, but for
your defective, malevolent fans. What a sick, horrific lot.
Fuck Robert Cray and his light meaningless blues stylings! Barf!
Fuck Billy Joel! It is not 1972. He is no longer cool. I have sincere doubts
that he was ever cool. Even when he was boning Christy Brinkley.
Fuck your collective bloodlust, your need for violence to prove your
confused manhood and bury your latent homosexuality.
Fuck your dreams of middle class respectability and eternally narrowing
minds! How boring and tragically limited.
Fuck you for the power you possessed and abused!
Fuck you for your part in this, my ongoing oppressed madness!
Fuck you, may you all die in lonely silence!
Fuck you all and long live the God damned, motherfucking Ramones!
THE MIND ATTIC 