A Plea for the Plebians

Or maybe an even better title would be "A Prayer for Owing Meanly."

Either way, in honor of my upcoming, hopefully short, period of underemployment, I give you . . .

The Thamesmen!

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The real video is here.

Politics Sux, Yeah We Know ...

... because the Ramones tell us so.

A conversation with my sister Kathy last night put me in the mind of how everybody has a threshold for the shenanigans of elected officials. I won't rehash her screed point by point, but what the Obama economic team has been doing has made her ready to string 'em all up and let the CPAs sort 'em out.

What she had to say also got me thinking about the Ramones anti-Ronald Reagan call-to-arms, "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)" off of Animal Boy.

(That full-album post is coming soonish.)

A decidedly nonpolitical band, the Ramones just couldn't wrap their heads around why then-President Reagan would attend a wreath-laying ceremony at a German military cemetery to mark the 4oth anniversary of the end of World War II hostilities between the Allies and the Germans. The graveyard at Bitburg is the final resting place of many SS soldiers.

It couldn't help the Ramones' opinion of Reagan's blatantly political play to the extreme right of the Republican Party that two of the boys in the band were Jewish. But even more than that, what comes across in the song is a real sense of disillusion and loss of hope that anything a politician does will ever make anything better.

Seems a lot of the people I know are reaching that psychological breaking point these days.

Go Hard and Stay Home

Album: Ramones, Too Tough to Die, 1984

Best Track: "Chasing the Night"

Lasting Memory: The house my family lived in for most of my childhood had four levels, with the first and fourth levels being separated from the second and third levels by three-step stairways. The Ramones' Too Tough to Die makes me think about the set of stairs that led from the ground floor to the main floor. Listening to this album, I can practically smell the dingy green carpeting on that short stairway.

What to make of that memory, I have no idea. And that's pretty much how I feel about Too Tough to Die. The album's songs are split roughly equally between hard core punk (e.g., "Warthog") and the power poppery upon which the band had made its reputation (e.g., "Howling at the Moon [Sha-La-La]"). The album is also rife with unwelcome "message" songs such as "Planet Earth 1988."

While the resultant mix of music doesn't exactly rise to the level of genre-hopping, Too Tough to Die does strike the ear as more of a compilation of at least two different bands' songs. One of those bands would be the standard-issue Ramones about which I've been enthusing for a couple of weeks. This is the "staying home" piece of my post title.

The other band goes hard and bears little resemblance to the standard-issue Ramones. While I can personally attest from several concerts' worth of experience that the Ramones pulled off their hard core material pretty well in a live setting, those songs transfer poorly to magnetized tape.

Unfortunately for my personal tastes, the Ramones edged further into hard core territory with each subsequent album after Too Tough to Die. Which only goes to prove the point that most punk bands strive to make -- and which the Ramones hammered away on in "Human Kind" -- the more things change, the more they suck.

Up Next: Ramones, Animal Boy, 1986

Pure Alchemy (or, "It's Gold, Jerry! Gold!!)

Album: Ramones, Subterranean Jungle, 1983

Best Cover Tracks: "Little Bit o' Soul" and "Time Has Come Today" (tie)

Best Original Track: "Psycho Therapy"

Lasting Memory: Invoking the statute of limitations for petit larceny in Virginia, I can now admit that I stole the Ramones' Subterranean Jungle from my sister Sue sometime between September 1987 and May 1988. The exact date of the crime escapes me, but I know the time frame because my lifting of the cassette was a crime of opportunity compelled by artistic considerations.

Sue went away to college that fall, and she left behind Subterranean Jungle. Taking it out of her vacated bedroom and pretending it had always been mine was absolutely the punk rockest thing to do. Perfection in acquisition, if you will.

Appropriate, then, that Subterranean Jungle pivots around the song that I will nominate as the quintessence of the Ramones aesthetic, "Psycho Therapy."





If "Psycho Therapy" sounds an awful lot like most other the Ramones' songs, well, look up the definition of "quintessence." Subterranean Jungle features other strong, enjoyable songs, such as "Outsider" and "Somebody Like Me." It also closes with the best-named song ever, "Everytime I Eat Vegetables It Makes Me Think of You."

But no song better encapsulates the bubble gum-meets-gutter punk sound the Ramones were going for than does "Psycho Therapy." While the lyrics and fuzztone tell a tale of violent, felonious mental illness, the backbeat and melody seem directly lifted from an Archies recording session. I love it. You should, too.

Up Next: Ramones, Too Tough to Die, 1984

Two Jokes, No Waiting

I'm feeling lazy, so here are two jokes in lieu of an actual post. One of these jokes is an Ed Lamb Original^TM. Can you guess which one?

Joke 1

Q. What is the hardest thing about fish farming?

A. Getting the wetsuit on the scarecrow.

Joke 2

A baby seal walks into a club.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

I learned last week that my name is on the Wall of Champions in the wrestling room at my former high school.

Weird. Deserved, inasmuch as I did win conference regular season and tournament championships in both my junior and senior seasons, but still very weird.

To begin with, I have never been a great athlete. In my most self-aware moments, I'd probably even admit to never being a particularly good athlete. The whole reason I took up and stuck with wrestling after I had tried and quit baseball, basketball, and football was because wrestling didn't instantly make my heaviness, slowness, and extreme near-sightedness and lack of depth perception insurmountable barriers to achievement.

But even then, it was essential to any success I enjoyed that I wrestled in the heavyweight class. Picture some high-quality amateur wrestling. Be assured that was not the kind of wrestling I did. Picture more of a sumo match that involves no rice throwing and a lot of lying flat on one's stomach.

While I took pride in being the best pusher and splay-outer in my conference for two years running, it needs to be noted that the conference included just six teams and that not every team had a heavyweight wrestler. If memory serves, I won two matches at the conference tournament my junior year and three matches at the conference tournament my senior year.

It also needs to be noted that my glory ended at the conference level. Stupid wrestling my junior year and a tough but fair call my senior year prevented me from going anywhere in the state tournament. The stings of these disappointments were compounded by the overwhelming success of my teammates at the state level both years.

And as if being overshadowed on my team wasn't tough enough, I was far from being the best athlete in my immediate family. That honor would go to my all-high school-everything sister Peggy. I was even farther from being the best athlete in my extended family. That honor could go to any number of my cousins who, respectively, played NCAA Division I football, soccer, and softball.

So what the hell is my name doing on that wrestling room Wall of Champions at my old high school? And what must a kid think when he sees my name up there?

The answer to the first question -- already stated quite simply -- is that for two years in the late 1980s, I beat the kids who weighed close to what I did and lived nearby. That counts.

Trying to come up with an answer to the second question that goes beyond "nothing" is what makes having my name on the wall weird and why I was prompted to assay this rambling essay.

Unfortunately, "nothing" seems to be the only possible answer other than a rare, random, and quickly dismissed without follow-up, "Who was Ed Lamb?" Those would certainly have been my reactions to some guy who got his name stenciled on a wall just because he captured some meaningless sports title two decades ago.

I suppose I should be a little bummed that my athletic legacy is essentially a blank, but in actuality I'm glad. Knowing me as well as I do, I know that I should not serve as an inspiration to anyone who wants to be a successful wrestler.

First, I wasn't all the great in my time or even in the sepia-tinting mind's eye of reflection. For their sake, I hope all the wrestlers in that room my name overwatches wind up being better than I was. Second, I have other signature accomplishments in which I can take pride and which I would be happy to see others hold in esteem. Those noteworthy accomplishment are often "signature" in the literal sense that I am a bylined writer.

Still and all, I recognize that it is better to have my name on that wall for the right reasons than in the papers for the wrong reasons.

Today's Theme: Themes

Album: Ramones, Pleasant Dreams, 1991

Best Track: "This Business Is Killing Me"

Lasting Memory: I mentioned a couple of posts ago that attending a Ramones show during the summer of 1986 was one of my first real concert-going experiences. While I can't remember the exact month or date, I know that the concert took place on a Thursday night and that I had to go to work the following Friday morning.

All that Friday at work in the Little Creek Navy Exchange warehouse, I was completely jacked up from seeing the Ramones because the band was, at the time, my favorite. I was also nearly deaf because, not knowing any better at the time, I had stood directly in front of a speaker tower throughout the Ramones' set.

I spent the entire workday shuffling through the stacks and, I thought, singing songs off of Pleasant Dreams such as "We Want the Airwaves" and "All's Quiet on the Eastern Front" under my breath to myself. Shortly after lunch, I was informed by a couple of my co-workers that I had been singing quite loudly the entire time and they thought I was high or drunk or they didn't know what.

All I have to say in retrospect is screw 'em if they don't like music. Especially since two of the songs that recurred in my repertoire were "It's Not My Place (In the 9 to 5 World)" and "This Business Is Killing Me."

Did I mention I was working in a warehouse?

If 80-plus years of talkies have taught us nothing else besides how to pay too much for cable movie channel packages, it has taught us that there is undoubtedly at least one perfect song each moment and situation. The work-hating songs on Pleasant Dreams have been remarkably resilient as theme songs for me at different time of life. Their thorough lodging in my subconscious undoubtedly played some role in my decision to become a freelancer a few years ago.

As an aside that builds to the larger point, at least one more song on the album seems to serve as another theme for another meme. "The KKK Took My Baby Away" seem to be thematically linked to an intraband love triangle involving Joey, Johnny, and the woman who left Joey for Johnny.

It's probably the case that every song has a specific meaning and message. After all, even the ridiculous but ear-catching "Abacab" contains the chord-progression coded message that Genesis would be turning from prog rock to pop. It is certainly not always the case that a singer or songwriter can successfully communicate and inculcate his or her message. Just watch the next American Idol contestant misinterpret "Poppa Was a Rollin' Stone" as being about having an Indiana Jones-esque adventurer as a father. (I hate myself for even knowing that performance exists.)

The Ramones absolutely did succeed time and again in making their songs stick as theme songs for the moment and the lifetime. Just don't let your Ramones-penned and -performed theme be "You Sound Like You're Sick" or "Sitting in My Room."

Up Next: Ramones, Subterranean Jungle, 1983

THIS Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio

Album: The Ramones, End of the Century, 1980

Best Cover Track: "Baby, I Love You"

Best Original Track: "The Return of Jackie and Judy"

Lasting Memory: Shortly after I discovered End of the Century existed during my freshman year of high school, I dubbed it from a friend of mine, quickly replaced that dub with an actual cassette reissue of the album, and just about played the tape blank. You name something I did between the fall of 1984 and the winter of 1986, and I did that thing at least once while listening to End of Century -- up to and including listening to other tapes and LPs in my then-minuscule collection.

End of the Century is as perfect a rock 'n' roll album as it is possible to make. Other self-contained collections of songs may match its scope and execution, but none could surpass what the Ramones accomplished while working with, and thoroughly hating, Phil Spector to produce End of the Century.

Opening with the love letter/mission statement "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?" and closing with the sign of things to come proto-hard core ditty -- yes, "ditty" -- "High Risk Insurance," End of the Century is the epitome of everything every band at any time was trying to accomplish when its members plugged in their guitars, screwed down their snare heads, and rolled three-quarters inch tape in the studio.

In between the all-time classic bookends already named and hotlinked fall the all-time classic punk tour song "Danny Says," the all-time classic happy heroin addiction song "Chinese Rock," the all-time classic high school screwup song "The Return of Jackie and Judy," the all-time classic Ronettes cover "Baby, I Love You," and the all-time classic filler track "All the Way," which has the all-time classic lyrics "Doomsday, doomsday is coming like the 8:01/ But until than, Lord, I'm gonna have some fun."

Which is all not to even mention that End of the Century features the definitive version "Rock 'n' Roll High School."

I was, and still am, affected.

Up Next: Ramones, Pleasant Dreams, 1981

Cretin Hopping With the Surfin' Bird at Rockaway Beach

Album: Ramones, Rocket to Russia, 1977 (dub)

Best Cover Track: "Surfin' Bird"

Best Original Track: "We're a Happy Family"

Lasting Memory: Somewhere in my father's extensive collection of stuff he just never got around to throwing away, there exists a videotape shot during the course of a celebratory family dinner in 1986 or 1987. On that video, I'm shown wearing my Boy Scout uniform and singing, along with my much younger brother, "We're a Happy Family."

To drive home the enormity of this impropriety, here are the lyrics to that song:

We're a happy family
We're a happy family
We're a happy family
Me mom and daddy

Siting here in Queens
Eating refried beans
We're in all the magazines
Gulpin' down thorazines

We ain't got no friends
Our troubles never end
No Christmas cards to send
Daddy likes men

Daddy's telling lies
Baby's eating flies
Mommy's on pills
Baby's got the chills

I'm friends with the President
I'm friends with the Pope
We're all making a fortune
Selling Daddy's dope

So, so wrong and untrue. We never lived in Queens.

But, lord help me, I've always misheard "We're a Happy Family" as a short ode to an actually happy family, and not as the nightmare the Ramones obviously intended. I'm not sure why, though, especially since Rocket to Russia is rife with songs that definitely are pleasant recollections of youth and hearth.

"Rockaway Beach" really is about a nice daytrip with the folks. "Cretin Hop" and "Do You Wanna Dance?" really are about wanting to have some fun at the high school dance. "Surfin' Bird" really is about, um, nothing. Sure is fun, though. And that bird seemed to be the word, or so I heard.

Joey, Johnny, Dee, and Tommy did make their first successful attempts at working on the darker side on Rocket to Russia, though. "I Wanna Be Well" and "I Can't Give You Anything" aren't about happy families, so good for them getting right their depiction of wrong things.

Up Next: The Ramones, End of the Century, 1980

Trust Redemption

Psalm 51, in the King James Bible, begins

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

Horton Foote committed this message to film most memorably in his screenplay for Tender Mercies, a film whose 1983 trailer makes the journey from sinner to, if not saint, at least not-sinner much easier than it proves to be.



Until I heard news of Foote's death earlier this week, I didn't know who he was, and I would never even hazard a guess as to whether he personally believed the words he put into the mouth of Robert Duvall's Mac Sledge: "I don't trust happiness. I never did, I never will."

I have known for decades that I love Tender Mercies and that the movie has brought me several days' worth of hours of enjoyment. It is one of three films that I will watch until it's over every time I happen to come across it on television. The other two are Duvall's The Apostle and Steve Buscemi's Tree's Lounge.

It can be no coincident on my end that each movie is about a man stumbling -- often hammeredly -- toward grace.

Nor is it possible to miss the shared moral that while happiness is often difficult to find and impossible to hold indefinitely, redemption is always only a word, an action, a person away.

Thanks for the lesson, Mr. Foote.

Hey! Gabba, Gabba Right Back Atcha

Album: Ramones, Leave Home, 1977 (cassette reissue)

Best Original Track: "Pinhead"

Best Cover: "California Sun"

Lasting Memory: One of the first real concerts I attended was a Ramones show at the Boathouse in Norfolk in July or August 1986. I was 16 at the time, spending my summer not dating, deciding not to continue playing football, and working 10 hours a day in a minimum-wage job as a warehouse laborer. In short, I was a standard-issue, postpubescent American loser.

The Pinhead came out on stage when the Ramones fired up on "Pinhead." It was exactly like not looking into a mirror, if you know what I mean.

I don't know, either, so don't sweat it.

What I think I'm trying to write is that the Ramones largely failed at fulfilling the raison d'être of a punk band, which is to capture and convey the alienation and anger of teenagedom.

The Ramones were always too damn much fun to be avatars of anomie. While the excellent band documentary End of the Century makes clear that the lads had more than their share of personal problems -- ranging from heroin addiction to social anxiety disorder and New York City Jewish liberalism -- those issues rarely came across in their performances, even when the performance was explicitly about those problems.

There was no wallowing in the Ramones discography. Catalog songs like "California Sun" did more than lighten the mood. They banished almost all the darkness.

No wonder "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker."

Up Next: Ramones, Rocket to Russia, 1977 (dub)

Let's DANCE

Album: Ramones, Ramones, 1976 (cassette reissue)

Best Track: "Let's Dance"

Lasting Memory: Remember that time that absolutely rocked? That was the time I was listening to the Ramones debut album because, you know, Ramones rocks.

1, 2, 3, 4 ....



Lots of bands before and since 1976 have rocked. What always set the Ramones apart from their progenitors, peers, and progeny, though, is that beneath the leather jackets and power chords beat the pure heart of a bubblegum pop act doing girl-group numbers.

Would the New York Dolls have been anything but scary if they had sung "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend?"

If the Sex Pistols had suggested "Let's Dance," would the audience have agreed?

Could Green Day sound as deludely charming when claiming "Today Your love, Tomorrow the World?"

No, no, and good God no.

The highlight of many a Ramones album, as I'll make eye-bleedingly clear as I blog through damn near the band's entire discography over the next couple of weeks, is a garage punk cover of a Motown, Stax, or Brill Building classic. And even on a majority of their originals, the Ramones' essential sweetness shows through.hat

Picture Slipknot recording a song titled "Beat on the Brat," for instance. I guarantee you t you didn't conjure this, which for all of its intended menance plays more like a lullaby than a felony.

Up Next: Ramones, Leave Home, 1977 (cassette reissue)