One of the rules was that we had a dress code. We adopted the uniform of ripped jeans, bowl haircut, leather jackets, and sneakers. It was all part of being a Ramone. Once, when we flew home from Amsterdam after a long tour of Europe, I did the opposite of what everyone thought I would do. I stayed sober on the flight back home to the States and took a good look at what was going on. Marc was as drunk as a skunk and acting insane. John and Joey, and their girlfriends Roxy and Linda, were being horrible to me.
When we cleared customs at Kennedy, I walked over to John and cursed him out. I felt like I didn’t want to be a Ramone any more. lb me, it was bullshit. I didn’t need them to tell me what to do all the time and then rail on me. I did a lot for them. I had put my life into the band, but nothing could satisfy them. They ended up creating an enemy right in their own ranks—me. It was pretty damn stupid. Especially for Roxy and Linda to start up with me. I was sick of it. I was sick of the Ramones, and the haircut as well. When I got home from the airport, I marched straight into the bathroom and cut my hair off into a Sid Vicious hairstyle. They won’t like this, I thought, and made a Sid-like sneer into the mirror.
The Rarnones became grim creatures on automatic. When Johnny Rarnone would shout a command, we would listen. We would head to the theater for Some fun. Whoever made the biggest fuss won. if you didn’t win, there was always another game the next day. We were hardened pros. All we needed was a demon drum beat to rip to. When the smoke started fizzling and the speakers were about to blow, we would just stop dead on the beat.
The crackle on stage would get Johnny Ramone to freak out. He would get dangerous, yelling and glaring at everyone. He had nothing hut pure hate in his eyes. He hated everyone, especially Joey and me. We loved it. it was fun to watch him go off. There arc’ certain types who can really yell in an extremely hostile manner. I certainly can, my mother can, but John was fantastic at it. He could really make a Sour face. In return F have pulled knives on him, yelled the f-word at him, and told him that I hated his guts.
By this stage Johnny Ramone decided everything for the Ramones. I sat in the back of the van and they sat up front. No one ever spoke to me. John and Joey had a few phoney conversations, but that was about it. I don’t know if everyone wanted to listen to the baseball game all day, but Monte would never turn it off because John wanted it that way.
By 1985 I was starting to have more imaginary heart attacks. But instead of going to a psychiatrist, I insisted on going to every cardiologist in Queens and Long Island. They put me in a long tube and took X-rays of me. It was like a Frankenstein experiment; I loved it and it made me feel very special. Usually I would wake up at six o’clock in the morning hold my heart and call the paramedics They didn't have any sympathy for me however, so I would just get up
It as my favorite time of day I would put on a strong cup of coffee roll up six or seven joints of Buddha Thai and I'd dream myself out of Whitestone. By then I was having a lot of escape fantasies about jobs I could do to support myself, so I could quit the Ramones. Like being a doorman, or. a candy-store owner, or having a hot dog stand. I was serious. I’d had enough.
We had to be very careful around Marc, because he was prone to violence and dangerous. No one wanted any trouble from him. It was also funny seeing him giggling and making strange hiccuping noises after a row with us. Sometimes it got sobad we couldn’t rehearse - Marc would drop his pants down to his ankles, stick his bare ass in the air and start to shake it. He would fold his arms into wings and start flapping them up and down, as if’ he were trying to fly for everyone. Finally he would peck with his nose and start running around the room in a frenzy, shouting “Chicken beak boy!
Chicken beak boy!”
it was when we were recording on Long Island that Marc flipped completely. I had just walked into the studio and John and Joey were waiting for me by the door.
“Don’t go in there, Dee Dee,’ they said.
“Ok. What’s happening, dudes?” I replied.
“Go home,” they told me. “it’s Marc, he’s flipped his wig. He’s in there now doing that chicken beak boy dance. lie’s really out of control. It looks bad, Dee Dee."
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The next day I met Sid. The Sex Pistols were playing a gloomy venue outside of London at some college or university Sid and I were talking on the balcony outside the dressing room, looking down over the audience in the theater.
“Sid,” I said to him, as I scanned their backline on the stage below, “you guys don’t have lights or a P.A. set up.”
“Right, aint it,” he replied.
“Yeah, right,” I answered back.
There were a few thousand people in the place. How was anyone going to see or hear them when they went on? The audience was really geared up for it and the atmosphere was partylike, but backstage it was a little depressing. Sid asked me if I wanted a beer and then went into the dressing room—from which he had been banned—to fetch one for me. He came back with the beer and it was already opened. I didn’t trust this because the Ramones always put a few drops of piss in anything they gave their guests to drink after the show, as a little joke to laugh about later. I figured that the Pistols would do the same thing, so I avoided Sid’s generosity. When no one was looking I poured the beer into their manager’s empty glass; he drank it down in one gulp
I know Malcolm doesn't like me SO I am going Sid," I Said, and made my
escape.
‘The same thing had happened the previous year when Johnny Rotten had come backstage to see us at the Roundhouse. Johnny Rarnone was very friendly to him, shook his hand, patted him on the back, and asked him if he wanted a beer. Johnny Rotten took it from Johnny Ramone and then while John was smirking, he drank it down in one gulp. 1 was holding my breath. This is unbelievable, I thought to myself. When Johnny Rotten left, we couldn’t believe that he’d come to see us.
To this day I think that the Sex Pistols’ album is one of the best albums of all time. They got an enormous amount of
And they barely played. Malcolm would always put them in impossible political situations, us-versus-them situations, live; it was one stunt after another. But thetruth is they were really a good band. They weren’t a bunch of monkeys. They were totally street. They couldn’t protect themselves from the street They had to walk around And I’d come by in a limousine and see them right there on the street.
People were pitting us igainst them and them against us The Sex Pistols were selling more records and getting more lamous but after a disastrous tour of America, the Sex Pistols broke up.
It was tough recording the Brain Drain album because everyone took their shit out on me. I dreaded being around them. It drove me away—I didn’t even end up playing on the album. Everybody in the band had problems: girlfriend problems, money problems, mental problems. It’s not easy to be in the same rock’n’ roll band with the same people for as long a time as the Ramones were. It just amazed me that people could keep believing in that happy family image of the Ramones. But then, I was amazed when Ricky Nelson died a drug addict. I couldn’t believe it. I thought he was such a nice guy, nice songs, he was like an all-American guy. Also, when Del Shannon shot himself, it made me think of why I wanted to shoot myself, too.
Somehow we loved each other though. I was staying in the band because I was so helpless and confused, but also because I was worried about them. How they felt. If they were happy, stuff like that. I worried especially about Joey.
I took a lot of abuse for being a Ramone. Once, I arrived at a New York airport with Monte, and the rest of the Ramones were already waiting. They all looked really uptight. I walked up to Johnny and said, “John, what’s goin’ on
John answered, I hate him,” referring to Joey.
He looked pretty scary his eyes looked like those of a killer, and he was enraged. Then he scowled at me, and said, “I am not going to Toronto, Dee Dee. I hate him. He used the name Ramone to play the Ritz.” He was referring to a solo gig Joey had played.
“It was a party, John. Joey needs another outlet, it’s not. .
John cut me off, “No way! No way! It’s all or nothing! Fuck everybody. I quit! I don’t need this shit!”
“Well, should I go see what joey thinks?”
“Fuckin’ go ahead!” John shot back at me.
So I walked up to Joey who was glaring at me and John from across the room. He was obviously not going to give an inch.
“Joey, my man. How are you today?” I asked.
"Fuck you, Dee Dee, you’re John’s friend. I am not going to Toronto today, ok? So fuck all of you.”
“Now Joe bro’, my man. Remember, sweet lovable all-important one, good bunnies get the carrots. Sweet bunnies with fluffy ears and tails. We are rabbits. Rabbits can’t get jobs, Joey. Let’s get on the plane. There arc places to go and pleasures to enjoy. It’s a beautiful day! What are va worried about?”
Finally, Johnny Ramone ended up yelling at me in Gary Kurfirst’s office one more time. Fuck this, I thought to myself. No more! Why couldn’t Monte have crashed the van and gotten us all killed? It seemed like I spent most of my life on the pavement, so it would have been perfect to die on the highway. but that would have been too easy.
If the van had crashed we all probably would have survived, except for Monte. That would have been hilarious. I could just see our sweet Monte going through the windshield. Somehow his head would get chopped off.
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