Joey
by Mark E. Wintle

I went to the Joey Ramone birthday bash and Uncle Floyd was one of the guests on stage. Blondie was great, and as usual, Debbie forgot most of the words. It's nice to see that even at her age she can be just as strung out as she always was. Cheap Trick was cool. The Cramps and the Misfits never showed. But, in a surprise, The Damned did. I couldn't understand one word the lead guitar said. But it was very British rock star sounding. The bass player, Patricia Morrison, was way hot -- black and red leather skirt, long black hair, gogo boots. (The Go-Go's themselves were rumored to be appearing as well. But then I heard they couldn't get tickets.)

Steve Van Zandt was the emcee. Everyone kept yelling "Silvio!" out at him, which was pretty much embarrassing. Most of the 300 people were under 25, but there was some segment that may have actually seen a Ramones show. The guy next to me had Ramones tattoos on both arms. One was the eagle with baseball bat logo, the other was 4 really detailed portraits of the members.

There was a place selling T-shirts. I got one for the collection. My old roommate Paul, who's a big Ramones fan, pointed out one of the many designs for infants. I laughed at this, then I realized he wasn't kidding. He had a phone with him because his significant other (okay, okay, his "wife") could poop out a replicant at any moment. Too weird. I wandered over to the "bar" and ordered a champagne and nachos, because ... I could. They had to open the bottle for me. I wonder if anyone else finished it.

The pit was okay. Not really exceptional, but at least it wasn't completely filled with 14-year-olds like the last Ramones show I went to. Then again the Lollapalooza show where they actually hosed the crowd down was the best one. I didn't spend too much time in the pit since, by an accident of stage-rush dynamics, I happened to be pushed to the 4th row for Blondie and stayed there the rest of the night. I made friends with a drunk young woman wearing a lot of leather that was grateful that I would stand still as she climbed on me to cheer the bands and speakers on.

Between bands there were videos where you could barely understand a word. Whenever a Metallica member would show up the crowd would burst into booing and jeering, sometimes chanting "Napster". That was kinda neat. It was a very fickle crowd. They were easily swayed. Marc Anthony could have kicked ass here. "I come here not to mourn Joey ..."

So promptly at midnight they shut the thing down. This despite being billed as a huge party lasting into the might. The organizers really didn't think much about pacing or crescendo, I guess. After the last band (and who knew it was the last band?) Uncle Floyd trotted out. Most people didn't know him. He dragged Joey's Mom out again, they brought out a cake with the Gabba hey guy in it, dropped confetti, then threw "birthday cake for everyone" out. It was Hostess some-or-other thingies. Then they told us to go away.

A gentle game of "whip the preprocessed cake-food packages back and forth from the balconies to the floor" ensued, and after about 60 seconds the floor was a slippery mess of beer and xanthan gum. It was hard to actually stand without falling.

On the way out we were all given little envelopes with three buttons and some postcards in it. The outside of the envelope had a rubber stamped Joey signature. Paul got an extra to sell on eBay.

-MEW

©2001 Mark E. Wintle