Dimitri Archive

NOVEMBER 19, 2001  

{* FIRST,I WOULD LIKE TO SINCERELY EXPRESS MY DEEPEST SYMPATHIES TO BROTHER MICHAEL MONROE,FOR THE SAD &  UNEXPECTED  LOSS

OF HIS BELOVED WIFE,JUDE WILDER.* }

R.I.P. Bo Diddley,Chet Atkins,John Lee Hooker,Jude Wilder,Jerry Wick,Papa John Phillips,Douglas Adams,Bryan Gregory,and my dear friends;Jonna,and Jen.

MIDDLE AGE WASTELAND BY RAMBLIN' J.D. MONROE

"Art Is A Revolt Against Fate…" (-Andre Malraux)

"We Don't Care About Employment…We Don't Care About The Law…" (-Paul K.)

"The Only True Aging Is The Erosion Of One's Ideals…" (-Ralph Nader)

"A Puppet I Was Never Meant To Be,In Style Or Not…" (-Hello Disaster)

I STILL LOVE ROCKNROLL…

  The new IAN HUNTER album,"Rant",is the absolute best new record I've heard since the Teenage Frames and sits nicely alongside his best work with Mott the Hoople! Wait `til you hear it! WOW!!!

IS NOTHING SACRED?

   Contrary to widespread speculation,I AM NOT THE NEW VOCALIST FOR THE RESURRECTED LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH.

   Excited as I was to learn that one of rock's rockin'est rockers,Mister Brian James,had resurfaced recently,working with Brother Wayne Kramer in an all-star super group,Mad For The Racket (to be released on Muscletone Records in the U.S. this fall.),as well as jamming with raw-outlaw-blues-punk-junk-storytellers,the Hangmen;I must admit,I was taken aback by the news I read on some Stiv Bators chat-thing I subscribe to,that Brian and Tregunna have reconvened as the LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH! Like you,I was initially shocked and dismayed,until I read the rap on their website about how the Lords were all of us,who've opened our eyes,"when the heroes have all died away",and remembered how the Lords' message was always about free will,and once I started thinking about it,and listened to their first album for the first time in ages,I started really warming up to the idea of James trying to summon up some of that long lost fire.I mean,why the hell not? Brian and Dave ARE Lords after all.And the song goes,"JOIN the Lords of the New Church/BE a Lord of the New Church",right?

It's just kinda like the DOORS without Jim Morrison.

    Unlike some,I love Brian James' solo album-especially,"Ain't That A Shame","Polka Dot Shot",and "Prime Time Blues",and really even actually sortof almost liked Brian's last group,the Dripping Lips,(Do hear their lovely song,"Such A Lot Of Stars"!) but of course,I was always thinkin' `bout how much harder they'd have rocked,if I had been the singer,but now,I just pity the fool who's brave enough to step up to the mic as fill-in for "thee" Lord.As Cheetah likes to say,"Alotta guys try to fill ol' Bator's shoes,but they only made one pair." So,I dunno,I gotta lotta mixed emotions about this,but ultimately,I suppose Brian feels he has the right to reinvoke the brand-name,seeing as how the Misfits seem to be making a living milking the past without Glenn Danzig somehow,even though I don't buy their records.And fuck--let's all try and remember our beloved scoundrel,

STIV,was no saint,either! I mean,this really ain't that much different from STIV trying to cash-in,touring as the DEADBOYS,without the other guys,is it? Or even real cool Jimmy Zero demos getting released as new Deadboys product,that neither Stiv,nor Cheetah,seem to have really participated much in.

  Whoever the new mystery vocalist is,I take my hat off to him,for dumb-guts alone,

'cause no matter how good he might be,the elder members of this faithful congregation are gonna eat him alive.The only guy I think we'd mostly all accept would probably have to be Michael Monroe-or like,Iggy...-Remember how Jim from THEE HYPNOTICS turned the other Lords down when Stiv had the back problems and they advertised for a replacement before,and ended up getting sacked by Stiv onstage? Seemingly everything else has already been sucked dry,watered down,stripped of all it's core integrity and commodified.Right now,I'm working for this Faustian corporate chain,Urban Outfitters,where all of the styles of clothing and assesories that some of us got beat up for wearing sixteen years ago,have been reproduced and saturation-marketed and tranquilized and tamed and overpriced for mass-consumption,it's actually quite vulgar.The kids all look the same.They sell all this marked-up punk gear to gullible young consumers and make like it's a hip and desirable,even prestigious,job to work there,because,well,they blast the Black Halos and Candy Snatchers in the store,but then;actually,are just another greedy,typically profit-drunk,sham corporation that body-searches employees before they're allowed to leave the store,no shit-we're expected to lift up our pants legs and pull all our pockets inside out,"I'm not stealing a pink plastic flamingo,I'm just happy to see yas…".They even have the nerve to call this ritual,"the Urban Dance",and their humourless but smiling,well-compensated management weasels lurk over our shoulders, swet-shop-like,to wring every possible drop of labor out of us idiotic,exploited,busy-workin' temporary employees.Last Tuesday and Wednesday,I helped unload literally thousands of heavy boxes from a truck and shelving units up and down flights of stairs all day long for minimum wage,and big promises of Urban Belonging.Like a sap.It's sinister.

   Today,they even made me fill-out this 53 question,invasive,psychological profile/personality test regarding my ethics,personal drug use,"honesty",alcohol-consumption,etc. Appalling! If I was in my right frame of mind,instead of this indoctrinated,humiliated "slave mind",never would I have consented to such demeaning dogshit.It's none of fucking Urban Outfitter's fucking business what I've chosen to put in my body "in the last five years".All for a fucking retail job,selling ugly shit to rich girls.Fuck right off.Fuck you,you nosey,typical,Orwellian,hypocritical, exploitive,

parasitical,uptight,enslaving,corporate motherfuckers.I really dropped the ball on that one,but I got young souls in my care,so the pricks kinda caught me off-guard,and had me over the barrel.I even signed this "quiz" and put my social security number on it.What was I thinking???!

I feel like I joined some cult…I did.Some call it the Adult World.Fuck the Adult World.

   But Back to the LORDS,let's recall how Our Hero,the much-worshipped and exhalted,Stiv,preached a gospel of freedom and individuality and going against the popular consensus and taking risks and breaking rules and not being afraid to piss people off.He admonished us to rise up and JOIN the Lords of the New Church,to literally BE a Lord,to not just idolize him,right? So what the fuck,bring it on,Brian,gimme some of that old time religion.Word has it Ozzie,the old drummer from my ultra-favorite super-unknowns,GUNFIRE DANCE,who later became THE STEPPIN' RAZORS,is in on skins…Cheetah Chrome's new CD is available from www.duirecords.com!

"Music Is The Brandy Of The Damned…" (-George Bernard Shaw)

"All We Love Is Lonely Wreckage…" (-Manic Street Preachers)

FLAWED IS BEAUTIFUL….

   …Other eighties bands I dig,who are currently reuniting,include my big faves,Dogs D'Amour,Flesh For Lulu,and the London Quireboys,as well as a rumoured Hanoi Rocks reunion (!!!) I believe they're calling HANOI REVISITED.Last I heard,Sami Yaffa's moody reggae/atmospheric band,MAD JUANA,had moved to Spain.Everybody's reuniting:Faster Pussycat,the Bangles,the Go-Go's,Psychedelic Furs,Duran Duran,and even me,Brian Morgan,and Little Dave Weir from all my teenage bands…And a really under-rated corporate rock band that tried to straddle to world's of cock-rock and power pop (ala Enuff Z Nuff ) called the Marvelous Three just called it quits.I was hoping they'd get on some package tour with the `Cherry…Ahhh well,no great loss,I'm sure they'll be a reunion someday…As always,I'm waitin' to hear new stuff from Tex Perkins,Slow Motorcade,the Hutchinsons,American Heartbreak,Beat Angels,Phoebe Legere,Paige Darling,Billy Burk,Brijitte West,John Easdale,Alistarr Lindell,and I'm especially lit up about the new London Quireboys,C.D.,"This Is Rocknroll"…I'm hearing some murmurings about an album of new original sounds from the Boys,and that Desert Inn Record's Tribute to the Boys & Hollywood Brats,"You Wanna Know What It's Like",should finally be out anyday now.http://www.desertinn.it/ -I did a faint version of the Brat's "Nitemare" on it with a throw together band,but don't let that discourage ya- there's loads of class acts participating,like Jeff Dahl & Sour Jazz,so you'll wanna pick up a couple of limited-edition copies to give as gifts,these are the same people who did that phenomenal tribute to the Dogs D'Amour a cuppla years back...Naturally,I'm excited about this upcoming collaboration between Circus Of Power and David Allen Coe!

…Anybody willing to fork over some dough for the new Motorcycle Boy line-up featuring ex-Urge Overkill great,Blackie Onassis,replacing Kenney Toy Boy on cans;to record? I sure as hell would,if I had the cash!…I also heard that former Celebrity Skin/Leaving Trains bassist,Tim Ferris,has joined the CRAMPS! Perfect! I still remember that Mojo Nixon "Horny Holidays" record release party when me and Tim Ferris (and Mojo!) were pretty much the only non-industry,suit and tied-types who showed up.Last I heard,poor ol' Mojo was a whacky morning-zoo radio D.J. here in Shitsinnati…Speakin' of the fabulous Leaving Trains,they're about to release a new album on Steelcage Records called,"Emotional Legs".I'm half-heartedly still trying to wring an interview about it out of the always scathingly funny,observant,and  usually insightful,Falling James Moreland, `cause I don't get to see his articles in the L.A. Weekly,he's been slackin' on turnin' in his HIT LIST columns,and he's easily one of my favorite storytellers--as well as everybody's favo'rite cross-dressing rocknroll action-figure…Maybe Long Gone John should put up the moolah for an upcoming Thunders/Palladin-style "Copycats"-type covers album starring Jeff Drake and Pleasant Gehman and friends.Whaddyathink? Meanwhiles,I understand the Vice Principals have split-up and the HUMPERS have also reunited.The Beatings have been on tour with Michael Rank's amazing Snatches Of Pink and continue to also produce the Alltime Best Glam-Trash-Punk T-Shirts.Check `em out at www.altamontrecords.com -You'll thank me later…Open letter to American Heartbreak:Whoever writes the lyrics,I wanna be your friend.Me and Jim Rinn,the President of my record company,I-94 Recordings,are dyin'to know who the absolutely great song,"Superstar",was written about.I'm sorry my rave review of "Postcards" went unpublished cause I really,really love your band,despite habitually mocking Jetboy...I've heard a tune called "Tug Of War" from the next TRASH BRATS record that's John Lennon/Rolling Stones quality soul.In addition to being,by far,the best rocknroll frontman this side of the old guard (he ain't Iggy,Mick,or Michael…) TRASH BRATS vocalist BRIAN OBLIVION is a wizard,a true star.Get their exceptional pop/punknroll album "AMERICAN DISASTER".It really showcases the versatility that sets the Trash Brats apart from most of their macho moronic punk contemporaries,who offer you thirteen (see,there's your number again…) songs that all sound the same. www.trashbrats.com Joan Jett and Thommy Price'll tell ya-Ricky Rat is a guitar hero of Mick Ronson proportions….Joe Strummer continues in stride to do no wrong with his new album,"Global A Go Go" that reminds us how Joe & Wayne Kramer are both on top of their alltime respective games while Iggy's just really disappointed me with his last two records…Jeff Dahl's been steadily producing a lot of groups out at Devil Tree like my man Siouxicide City Pete's Chickenhawks and Mike Frame's Zillionaires and I'm eager to hear the much- heralded Slash City Daggers.Hey Pickle,If you ever get the boot,you know who to call.An absolutely ESSENTIAL rocknroll compilation you oughta hear is called,"DRUNK ON ROCK Vol.TWO"-It Stars such leading lights of the Ultra Underground as the Malakas,Texas Terri & the Stiff Ones,the Stiletto Boys,the Golden Arms,Dimestore Haloes,(the amazing…) Teenage Frames (you gotta see their rantzine,"Trash"!) and my own pop rocker,"Nostalgia Kills".It's available dirt-cheap from I-94 Recordings.Their web address is tricky,so get a pen and pay attention:

http://community-2.webtv.net/i94rec/I94Recordings/

SUPPORT REAL ROCKNROLL.   

"Well Your Hero Is A Zero & You're Just Another Weirdo…" (-Hanoi Rocks)

"I'm A Stone Dead Tripper Dying In A Fantasy…" (Jesus & Mary Chain)

BADSVILLE,U.S.A.

   Acetate Records,home of the fierce and fearsome Hangmen,sent me this kickass movie about the West Coast Glam-Trash-Punk'n'roll Underground you absolutely gotta see called "Badsville".It's like a modern-day "Decline of Western Civilization" and stars some of my personal faves like the Hangmen,Bam & Share from Bubble and the Dogs D'Amour,and the eternally-praised,Texas Titties;and introduced me to the dangerous NY-Rockers,Man Scouts Of America,and L.A.'s own fabulous the SuperBees (!)-- who look like the Yardbirds and sound like vintage Gunfire Dance! Sensational! (*Still waiting for  somebody to turn me on to the new Coma-Tones,Texacala Jones & the T.J. Hookers,Electrolux,Beautiful Creatures,Pure Rubbish,the Yo-Yo's,and the Darlings

/Climactics…)

   This flick also finally answers my question about what ever happened to that gorgeous and talented,former Mini-Skirt Mob vocalist,Jacqui Lynn,(Who's got a copy of that movie she did with Fuzztone,Rudy Protrudi,years ago?!) She's in a sultry Acetate rockband called Dragbeat,who are definitely worth checkin' out! Particularly if you like your hot rod rock on the sleazy side.

   A lot of cats whom I thought were sorta has-beens ten years ago,God Bless `Em,like Danny Nordahl from the Throbs,The Newlydead's Taime Downe,and Bebe Buell's ex-husband,Coyote Shivers,are all presented yet again as potential Next Big Things,giving this here aging rocknroll super-groovie all kindsa hope.'Still no sign of Danny Nordahl's ex-NY Loose bandmate,Brijitte West (who I want to sing on my next album);the liner notes were penned by the highly esteemed rock journalist,S.L. Duff,and the whole sordid shebang loudly climaxes with Tx Terri singin' "Down On the Street" with a skuzzy authority that has inspired millions to compare her to Ig-can't wait to hear her Jack Douglas-produced newer sounds.Demon Boy from the Stiff Ones is Ricky Rat's favorite current-day axe-man,if that tells you anything….

    I still gotta con my skeptical girlfriend into sitting through this crucial documentary,to prove that all my remaining rock'n'roll ambitions ain't as far-fetched as they often might seem,when I'm friendless here in this awful town,enduring heaps of abuse,and getting turned down for lame jobs.Lookit these cats,the Super Bees,honey,they're hot in big city el lay,right? Now listen to "Where Is Wendy" by DIMITRI MONROE & THE NAKED FLAMES! See,it's just a kiss a way,kiss a way,kiss a way…Essential viewing!

  Support all the bands I mentioned here,Dave Kusworth and the Tenderhooks,Nikki Sudden,the Veins,the Coma-Tones,Sour Jazz,"AMERICA'S ONLY ROCKNROLL BAND":the Trash Brats,Leaving Trains,Nova Express,Bubble,Teenage Frames,JetSet,the Scarecrows,and my own ramshackle,hard-candy sweethearts,Dimitri Monroe & The Naked Flames.That is,if ya like the Real Rock'n'roll.-Some of you apparently don't.And that's ok,I guess…My Spiritual Forebearer,the Great Zodiac Mindwarp says,"It's primarily about grown men expressing the impotent rage of grown teenagers.Rocknroll is about the rage of hating your parents and school,having sex and talking about all the things that grown men should have grown out of,by the time they're 29,like myself.Some of us lucky retards never grow up.There's an inherent stupidity to the rock genre which isn't nessacarily a bad thing.You should embrace it without mocking it or becoming a parody…I'm content to celebrate dumbness with a certain panache." Exactly!

THE RETURN OF MISTER POPULAR….

  The disreputable and debonaire thrill-seekers of SOUR JAZZ,who I've recently written about for both Hit List and Carbon 14 magazines; just sent me another high water mark album,that's got both the suave atmospherics of shadowy film-noir,and the catchiness of late-seventies punk/new wave,ala the Saints or Peter Perret.A desperately-swank-classy-trashy-bluesey-jazzy-spacey-beat-punknroll-cocktail called "Lost For Life" that I highly recommend.This might be the best thing Ratboy's ever done,I shit you not.I assure you,there's really no reason to settle for anymore Hellacopters rip-off bands,now that Rat,Splat,Lou,and Cow are back in action.Yeah,if you doubt me at all,go ask all our friends at the I-94 BAR or Darren Stockford from "She Didn't Like Rocknroll"-you honestly ought to get this as soon as you can.SOUR JAZZ are total rocknroll kings.They're really in a class all their own,right now,(OK,them and Dragbeat…) relentlessly mining that swingin' Iggy/New Values velvet goldmine,while,mixing in piano and horns from 70's blaxploitation flicks and blackened-voodoo guitar stylings so mean and shitty,it's hard not to mistake them for Kim Salmon & the Surrealists;hip,funny lyrics and stylish,soulful influences from every great musical genre,ultimately,creating some entirely fresh sounding,original,hook-laden new music.SOUR JAZZ only serve up Topshelf,Quality Rocknroll.Available through www.sourjazz.com …Other stuff I can enthusiastically endorse if you've already ordered the new SOUR JAZZ CD, include voluptuous JACQUI LYNN'S smokin' new album,"Pure Dirt" by her coolass 50's strip-club combo,DRAGBEAT (Stay Tuned For An Interview!),Chick Graning, the Superbees,Darrell Bath,"The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran,Sonny Vincent,Star Spangled,the Nasty On,the Spiders,Teenage Frames,the Dragons,Dogs D'Amour,solo Andy McCoy,

Grilled Portobello Mushroom Sandwich from feel-good yuppie grocery chain Wild Oats,Tropi-Coco Sparkling Coconut Soda,Bill Hicks (R.I.P.),MOJO magazine,the Big Takeover,Carbon "You're Too Hip,Baby"14,Henry Miller,Jungle Jim's grocery store,Flaming Stars,the Anchor Grille,Spike & Curly punkrock pins,Alt Park,Ian Dury,Demolition Doll Rods live,old Flo & Eddie,Eye-Tech Opticians in downtown Cincinnati,Joe Strummer,Inger Lorre,Ralph Nader,Edward Hopper,James Elroy,

Bono,Howie & the Suicide Squad,Detroit Rock Photographer BRIAN T.,and "From Freedom To Slavery,The Rebirth Of Tyranny In America " by Gerry Spence.Dig in,hellcats…

MANNEQUIN WORLD….

"Breathing Fire doesn't look good on a resume'…" (-Everclear)

"No One Wants To Pay Me For My Broken Heart…" (-Dramarama)

   It's 8:06,my dietician,Mistie,will be arriving at 8:30 to take me to work at this Godless job (literally,it's in an old church they had de-Godded) at Urban Outfitters I'm supposed to be grateful for and I do NOT want to go.I just can't find a job I like.Every goddamn job is worse than the last.Offering me less and less money to support my family with and steadily demanding more.This corporate retail shit ain't my bag at all.The rules,the swet shop atmosphere,the trendy-chic,overpriced phoniness.They won't have a hard time replacing me-they get around 100 applications a day.Stores like this are the reason the landfills are full,they've discarded thousands and thousands of only once-used coat hangers and untold plastic and cardboard in the weeks I've worked there,and they're also part of the reason all the thrift stores seem so depleted.They buy up vintage stuff by the bulk to sell at 2000 times their price to willing dupes I can't feel sorry for.Don't spend your money at these chains that overcharge you,fuck up the enviornment and hysterical with loss prevention paranoia,treat their own employees like crooks and slaves.Support the independents even if they're usually (like Thee Whiskey Rebel says,and he's right…) assholes,too.("CONSIGNMENT" IS BULLSHIT.Independent C.D. stores should "support" independent bands,if they expect the same!) I realize I'm just ranting,but I  hadda get it off my chest before I go back into that room fulla zombies who worship at the Urban-Alter,this morning.Thanks for listening.

THAT'S SHOW-BIZ,BIG BOY….

…Nine Hours Later: Today,I endured endless policy and procedure training courses all day long.It was worse than high school.Awful.Time just froze.Manuals,role-playing,

company propaganda,the works-with an obsessive corporate emphasis on "shrink" or "loss-prevention",during which our trainer outlined  "Urban's" priorities as follows:

1)Image.2)Loss Prevention.3)Customer Service.Their theory being that they got all the most sought-after,useless,flash trash us dummies crave,so they don't have to swet selling anybody anything-it's all about protecting the company's bottom-line,merging one's self-interest with the company,busting poor people with enthusiasm!

   I dunno man,the brainwashing's even working on me.I see these good lookin' kids with their hip new threads and expensive haircuts,flawless skin and supple breasts,jetting around opening stores on the company dime and I wanna piece of the action.I've paid enough dues and bear enough scars for five or six full-time fuck-ups,scrapin',and

scrounging,barely getting by,sleepin' in the car for years on end.Now I'm old,with kids to support,and feel I deserve some of that shiney,colorful,trendy- kitsch.Where do I sign up? I want the paper lamps and the punk rock belts just like everybody else.I don't steal,so it was no surprise I passed their mandatory psycho-analysis questionaire,but I still resented it.I mean,what the fuck?

   This is a good learning experience for a long gone cat like me,though,because I'm starting to understand how so many of my peers have been so duped by the modern American Ruse.Trading in their humanity and compassion for a ride on the consumer culture fast-track to the top of the corporate-retail shitpile.They make it all seem so fucking appealing…Chances are,I'm just gonna get laid-off when the store opens anyway,disposed of and replaced by some good lookin' kid who has nicer threads,and a more "urbane" attitude.They can always tell I'm the skeptic,the heretic,the incorruptible.Just like in A.A.-No matter how hard I try.I'm just no good at kissing ass and fitting-in and sucking shit,so I only ever seem to end up as the underpaid grunt the stuffed-shirts can wipe their ass with when the shit-work is done,thusfar.

   If anybody reading this has any constructive/practical ideas about combating this bottom-line worshipping corporate wage-slavery,and resisting having to sell your dignity for whatever-$6,7,8,9,12 bucks an hour,but to still somehow be able to operate independently and thrive and provide for your own,in this shitty world,please coach me,'cause I seemed to have skipped that class while not really growing up.

   Nowadays,all the mainstream kids look punk,but they're obedient and passive,and never question authority.Manic Panic hairdye and nose-rings and studs and tattoos are almost becoming like designer jeans and Izods when I was a kid.And In the meantime,all the bad guys are winning!  www.hated.com Seven dollars an hour is a "Quality Of Life Crime" ,if ya ask me! I'm never gonna fit in these corporate environs…www.freespeech.org

"You Told Me Baby You Were Down To Kill/But Then You Threw Me Away Like An Overdue Bill…" (-Smithereens)

"But I Wish I'd Wrapped Myself In Thee…" (-Blue Oyster Cult)

BROKEN BUTTERFLIES….

   More True Confessions:Like I mentioned last ish,now I got worry.I'm so perpetually  overwhelmed and worn-down by grownup obligations here in the Middleage Wasteland these days,that I've gradually even started succumbing to "square" ya'llternative country-rock music.The very "No Depression" or "Americana" shit `readers of my rant-rag, "Burntout Recluse" have heard me summarily mock for years.I guess,in this hour,I just relate a lot more to the ruined singer-songwriter's hard-luck tales of failure,divorce,

disappointment and melancholy,the less-sexy side of actual grown-up alcoholism,than I do to friggin' STILL more shit from twenty year olds in snakeskin cowboy hats screamin' in fake british/southern accents about getting laid and shooting pool/up.

   I'm totally still down with Paul K. & The Prayers,Tex-Don-& Charlie,the Dirty Three,

Tommy Womack,Chris Isaak,Lucinda Williams,Whiskeytown,Ryan Adams,David Olney,the Bottle Rockets,the Jayhawks,Nici Buehrig,the Sovines,the Dirty Three and Golden Smog…

I BET IF WE ASKED `EM,OUR HEROES WOULD SAY,"HEY!WE'RE ALREADY

 GONE!"…I KNOW…SOMEHOW,I KNOW….

    So my good friends,as I write this,in early July of 2,001; Guess who's back in circulation!! The Untouchable-One-&-Only-Human-Roman-Candle-Extraordinaire,

Diamond David Lee Roth (!) is back on tour,playing Original Van Halen Classics for the People,while his misguided,millionaire former bandmates sit around their mansions,

playing golf,endorsing apparatus,and nursing their bruised egos, since the lame shit they did with that dork from Extreme flopped so predictably.-Myself,I was always amazed `that all that lousy,watered-down commercial-spooge they did with poor old "Red Rocker",Sammy Hagar,ever sold any copies whatsoever,it sucked so hard.(*Sammy Hagar is the chief reason pro-legalization advocate, J.D. MONROE,don't smoke the ganja…'Cuz everytime he does,rationalizing it's a safer,more harmless drug than the dangerous brown liquors of his shattered past,invariably,he ends up in a spinning room that reeks of bong-water,with cotton mouth and a resin-sheen,no cab-fare home,and some terribly misguided host,mercilessly commandeering the stereo, insisting he ain't given vintage Montrose a fair listen!See what kinda bizarre nitemare I inhabit?)

    DAVID LEE ROTH,simply,IS AND WAS,the true spirit of what "Van Halen" meant to all of us real-rocknroll-fanatics...The embarrassingly sub-par Van-Hagar version only appealed to guitar-tech-nerds and lowest-common-denominator dentist's secretaries and

armchair-sportsfans.The Mall-Dupes…TV Dummies.People Magazine people.The same folks who pay to see Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts and Matt Damon and Sandra Bullock movies,who think Ben Affleck and Drew Barrymore are cutting-edge.The excrutiatingly unimaginative ones who spend their money exactly where they're told on new cars and chicken wings and ugly clothes and new video-game systems,and pay-per-view-specials,who drink too many watered-down margaritas and sing-along loudly to Neil Diamond and Jimmy Buffet songs at chain-Mexican restaurants.'Who watch Court TV and all those MSNBC jail shows and root for the bounty hunters and corrections officers.

    I won't get a chance to catch the "DAVID LEE ROTH SAVES THE DAY TOUR",due to chronic poverty,but for some reason,it does my heart good that both BRIAN WILSON and DAVID LEE ROTH are back in action! I'm California Dreamin' on the Fourth Of July,listening to Brian Wilson singing,"Caroline No",and thinkin' about a certain lonestar queen who's supposedly waitin' for me at the edge of summer or seventeen or somewhere down in Mystery City….

   Checkout www.dlrarmy.com and www.davidleeroth.com,to stay hip to all the rich,bulging,pageantry of  Mister Entertainment's showdates near you.Do you damn kids remember that Beach Boys song that went,"If everybody had an ocean across the U.S.A."? Well,prob'ly not,but you can still bet Angelina Jolie's string bikini that Diamond Dave's gonna be bringing all the fanfare,all the spectacle,all the inflatable phalluses and palm trees,and hoopla and tiki torches to you,in your own backyard! "Now I don't know what you might have heard,but what I need right now is the original good time girl…" If you've been listening to any of those bands with the word "Hell" in their name,who have song-titles featuring the words "Sin" or "The Devil",and you've found yourself recently acquiring more tattooed portraits of old country stars you'd never listened to intentionally the year before last,and spending half the day bending your cowboy hat into shape,or working on your pompadour,and believing that any of these bearded,satanic rednecks in bands like the Flaming Eightballs know how to throw a party,you owe it to yourself to catch D.L.R. live.Even your own in-the-know unwashed and hairy hipsters will probably admit to ya,he's the greatest entertainment value out there.If you've seen KISS and NASHVILLE PUSSY live,go see ROTH.He's the King.The Ric Flair of Arena Rock.I'm only tryin' to help…  

ASHES & GHOSTS….

   Speaking of Yesterday's Badasses,the mighty CULT have returned with another gothic big-rock cd called, "Beyond Good & Evil",that's mandatory summertime listening for True Believers and Burntout Recluses,alike.I was a little skeptical when I heard it was being produced by Mick Jones (Not "our" Mick Jones--the guy from Foreignor!) -and `cause they'd recorded a tune penned by Diane Warren-Aerosmith's for-hire,syrup-mongering, song doctor,and Ian's appearance with the surviving DOORS on VH1 was less persuasive than one might have hoped;but the single "RISE" seems to be getting a surprisingly strong industry-shove and all the hicks that buy neo-nu-metal and like Fuel and Filter have been blaring it in passing cars,so y'know,I probably just need to allow the new tunes time to sink in a little more.

   That last self-titled disc of theirs with the goat on the cover was an exceptional collection of outstanding,emotive,hard-soul anthems that no one besides me and the Sleazy One seemed to get off on,but it took me awhile to get it.I had a part-time job last year at a suckass,suburban,top-40 cd store and the Cult rarities box-set came through,

used,but even still,I couldn't remotely afford to purchase it,so it was all I ever listened to in-store…."Bleeding Heart Graffiti" becoming another one of my personal,all-time theme songs.(The box-set eventually sold to a COP! I was dying to ask the guy how he reconciled a love for the Cult with being an agent of control,but never really enjoy engaging those guys.)

   These aging warrior-souls,IAN ASTBURY & BILLY DUFFY,are bringing all their majick-tinged hellfire and white-winged glory back to commercial-radio stations and half-empty arenas this summer,touring with MONSTER MAGNET.I can't imagine who can afford to go see live music nowadays in that context,after the dreaded Ticket-Master has their evil way with your loathsome credit card,and you pay for parking,but I wish THE CULT all the best of everything.Ian Astbury's holy-barbaric battle-hymns of love & war scorched a fiery rocknroll brand on my soul as a whisky-crazed teenage hellion  and songs like "SHE SELLS SANCTUARY" and "REVOLUTION" will haunt me `til I'm gone…I'm into Real Rocknroll,so I'd much prefer the return of biker-boogie-psychedelic-love-metal and pagan wolf-men  in S.S. trousers to still more bouncey,

cutesy,smiley,whacky,`77/Ramones/We Wear Devo Sunglasses And Socks On Our Dicks/Rich Kid-Eleventh-Generation-Retro-Rehash!

   Back in the early 90's all these brilliant dinosaurs still ruled the wasteland-righteous warlocks and iconic shamen like IAN ASTBURY and ZODIAC MINDWARP & THE LOVE REACTION and L'Andrew Wood from MOTHER LOVE BONE,and ALEX MITCHELL from CIRCUS OF POWER.-Y'know,I still kinda miss those thirsty kings.Trustfund Rock and Techno and East Bay "Don't Call It…" Emo,(Preppie Punk!) ain't leavin' no impression on me,whatsoever.Bring back the black leather and chrome and big,pointey,witch hats and hollow body guitars! FULL DISCLOSURE:Personally,

after just a few more cursory listens,I'm still having trouble really connecting to this Cult album.I mean,fully getting in the spirit,but I'm not drinking today,can't play it loud,can't go anywhere,and continue to grind my wheels in the mire of increasingly diminished self-esteem and the lowered expectations of this thankless,harrowing Jerry Springer-Existence

/wage-slave-rut I'm in,so the problem is probably mine,and not the Cult's."Shape The Sky" is clearly a bullet-proof,stone cold hit!

   I couldn't really feel that 2nd BUCK CHERRY record,either-the one with all the secondhand gangsta rap lyrics and lame piano ballad my old cohort thought was "better than teenage pussy"! (Sorry,Ginger-I still love ya baby.) `Same with the BACKYARD BABIES & HARCORE SUPERSTAR-it all just leaves me cold."Is something wrong with me/or something wrong with you/I really wish I knew,wish I knew,wish I knew…" Where can you turn when even the cream of the crop modern underground rock bands have zero affect on your bleek outlook on life? Everytime I hear some half-way decent,much-hyped,modern heavy-rock,or punk-metal band,I'm always just thinkin' "They ain't no motherfucking CIRCUS OF POWER".Y'know?

   Thumbs up on NICK CAVE'S "No More Shall We Part".Beautiful piano and his Biblical Voice from Baptist Hell.The song "God Is In The House" reminds me of Cincinnasty's politicians.Thumbs down on Iggy's "Beat `Em Up".Anybody wanna hear Iggy try to sound like friggin Korn? "Naughty Little Doggy" was so great,Ig-What are ya thinkin'?

RUNNIN' ON LEGENDS & THE WILL TO SURVIVE….

  There's a lot of excitement in the air,as me and Mistie,my faithful nutritionist,are preparing to resume my savage journey,makin' a break for the coast,lighting out for the territory,riding the code of the cactus,next week,or sooner,in search of light and hope and song and kicks.Right now,the plan is to start on the East Coast,do some recording with my old pals,Brian Morgan and Dave Weir,and maybe Phoebe,or some random Sour Jazzbo's if they're available;eat falafels,ride the stinky subways,soak up some new vibrations,then head out west.On Route 66.You know how this All-American Puttin' The Show On The Road-Trip goes."The West is the best/you get here and we'll do the rest".I've been craving an old fashioned,cross-country,

Travelling-Wild-West-Show-Wing-A-Ding-Ramshackle-Last-Ditch-11th Hour- Rocknroll-Mercy Mission-And Maximum Rhythm & Blues Revue-With No Particular Place To Go-Hobo-Bozo-Misadventure for a long,long time.

   For Years,I've been needlessly stranded here in Ohio where there ain't no REAL fun to be had.Of course,I'm gonna miss my kids something fierce throughout this desperate tour of duty,as we're as thick as thieves,but I need to get some fresh air,do some writing and music,convene with old friends,get something done,and the wise old lady,my beautiful Paula's even given her blessings.She knows,in her heart of hearts,I ain't no deep-fryer.Telemarketing ain't my calling.I'm more than a Tool or a Dish-Washer,y'know? I just haven't worked out the way to be me,but still buy her the Volvo and the farmhouse with the peacocks and eccentric sculptures on the land quite yet-but you know I won't give up….I REMAIN JASON DIMITRI MONROE,THE LAST OF THE LAST OF THE LAST OF THE LAST?AND HOW MUCH MORE,BABIES,CAN YOU ASK? I gotta get some business cards made.What should they say on `em? Crime Fighter.

Torch-Singer.Clown-Prince.Hopeful Soda Jerk.Beat Poet. Freedom Fighter.Conjuror of Mischief,Friend Of The Community,Defender Of The Meek,Keeper Of The Flame,Your Favorite Vagrant,…and all these Unappreciative Cincinnatians keep trying to hand me the mop! -We might be gone for awhile….It's July 20th and I opened up Cincinnati's City-Beat magazine today and it's always the same old story,the same old song and dance,my friends…Still more adult bookstore sting-operations,P & G's non-stop animal testing.Silencing Of Dissent.Censorship.Corruption.Corporate Rule.False Arrests.Police Brutality and Racial Profiling…Sports,Chili Dogs and Authoritarianism."Disorderly conduct and resisting arrest"(Hey,Man-I just don't look good in Khakis!) Enslavement or Incarceration,and this wicked Bush & Cheney Administration's Heartless Global- Capitalism without conscience.Gary Condit,our blind devotion to Israel.FUCK THIS SHIT.Rule Of The Few-Just How Some Of Youse Seem To Like It.--Not Me,Baby.I'm goin' back to what I know,goin' back where I belong,we're never Goin' Radio,so I'm holdin' fast to our Rebel Songs! Are ya with me? How's the pirate king in you holdin' up,brothers and sisters? Are you feelin' FREE? To be yourself and live peacefully? To Eat,Drink,and Be Whatever The Fuck You Wanna Be?…Just One Vast Alternative News Resource That Reports Some World Events,Not  Exclusively From The Perspective Of The Mondo-Rich Powers That Be,Or U.S. Military-Industrial Complex,that you might wanna consider perusing, if you doubt some of what you hear on MSNBC,and in the Corporate Media At Large,is Z MAGAZINE or the Progressive magazine.They both contain a lot of  compelling food for thought.Ok?Another View…Stuff To Think About,besides the corporate party line horseshit & video games & pro wrestling & trendy bath products named after yoga positions.I hope to attend the Z Magazine Institute's annual seminar in Cambridge this year. www.zmag.org

HOWLIN' DOWN THE HWY WITH A DONUT IN MY HAND….

   Pseudo-Tour-Diary.August Eighth:So my longtime runnin' buddy,Nasty Bastard,the miserable guitar player in my old band of drunken sociopaths,the Original Suffering Bastards,showed up unexpectedly,as he's want to do,with that dangerous glint in his eye,and I knew we'd be leaving town.Good old Nasty got me as far as Masonville,

N.Y.,before his thirty year old V.W. van broke down and we hadda call in friends to come rescue us.I wasted a week or so in Boston,but as usual,there wasn't nothin' happenin' at all,so I Bat-Phoned Mistie,the dietician,who showed up to take me on in to NYC where we saw a great film,"Downtown 81" starring Basquiat,discovered one of my all-time favorite record shops:Wowsville in Manhattan,where Dee Dee Ramone's original paintings are available.We shopped,saw friends,made some new ones,took pictures,hungout all over downtown for a week,and recorded an E.P.'s worth of fresh material with the guys from all my teenage bands in Brooklyn.Just eating French fries on Second Ave.,watchin' all the pretty girls go by,is better than anything the fuckin' Gap and VH1 have to offer me back home in the suburbs of the midwest.I saw Jesse from D-Generation in front of what used to be King Tut's Wah Wah Hut,and told him how I love his song,"Helpless".I only wished I'd had some long green for some new threads but it seems my money star is thusfar still on the wane…I Saw some 45 year old man in a Deadboys t-shirt nodding out on the steps in front of that big white building on St.Mark's Place-talk about living out pathetic cliché's!

   Keith Richards' producer on "Talk Is Cheap" dates a woman who owns a N.Y. bar called Luna,and she plays bass in this band who cover a lot of my songs,and the producer-boyfriend has apparently been praising my original work that's being covered by his old lady alongside an old cronie of mine,for being "real".Intriguing,huh? The drummer of this same band,who are even going so far as to even ressurect one of my old band names,PALE IMITATIONS,loves my tunes as well,and he used to play with Syl Sylvain and Johnny Thunders.So ultimately,I sort of have my own tribute act/covers band (!) --even though I've yet to release a full-length album.Crazy,huh? To hear some versions of dumb songs I wrote ten years ago,checkout www.pantycopter.com/pi My buddy Ron put all this together and sings,he's kindof like Kim Fowley, plays a bad guitar,and he used to be in a band with Reeves Gabrels.

   It was ultimately,an amazing,triumphant,productive trip! The NYC leg of the trip anyway…The Candy Snatchers musta wrote "Your City Sucks" about either Boston or Censornati.Now,I'm pleased as punch to just be back here for a few weeks with my beautiful,gorgeous,sexy girlfriend,Paula,who I missed almost as much as our effervescent,sweet hearted,wonderful children.Next Week,it's to Columbus,to see my friends,THE HEALERS;then,onto Detroit to record with my other band,I-94 Recording Artists,THE NAKED FLAMES;then,to Louisville,Kentucky to see Paul K. and the Prayers' new six piece incarnation-they got a killer new disc comin' out anyday now called,"The Night We Cheated Death";and the sky's the limit from there.I'm reclaiming my sovereignty."I'm off to Be the wizard"…Getcher shoes on,and you can come,too!

SOMEDAY WE'LL ALL GET OUT OF HERE…

   My Soul-Sister,Mean Khrystein The Hell-Fire Queen,keeps a list of all the People Who Died in the back of her old poetry book,most of `em we met  hangin' out at this violent dive bar in Cincinnati called the Sub Galley.She called the other day to say she had to add two more.Both their initials were J.P.,both were old girlfriends of mine I'd met at that bar and hadn't seen in a long,long time,and both sadly took themselves from this world on the same day.Be good to your loved ones.It's all too brief and we are all so fucking brittle."When you check out of this hotel,Jack,you're nothin' but an autograph…" (-Peter Laughner)

JONNA SUNFLOWER…

   I don't remember quite how I met her,but her hair was French Vanilla Blonde.She had freckles all over her chest and body.Marajuana-breath-kisses,and the knockout,

generous,sixty-mile-smile of a million dollar model.She was part hardened honky-tonkin' whiskey woman,and part childlike hippiechick.All us rhinestone cowboys loved her.The legendary Poet/Blues-Belter/World Famous Street-Musician,Mark Battelle,used to call her,"My Ivory Girl".Me and Visionarie Artist,Dan Curry,(www.oneeyedking.com) met each other because of her,and once,we even both showed up at the evil bar at the same time,both clad in leather cowboy hats,both with the same idea of  bringing her roses on her birthday.I remember her saying she fell in love with me and my son,Christian,years ago,when she watched us playing in the park,before we knew her.She used to babysit him.She always asked me to run away with her and live in a teepee.Trash talk on the street has it that her Mother killed herself at the same age and Jonna was upset that her beauty was fading.Crazy,cause I coulda easily assured her she was truly a wonder to behold even after years and years of hard livin'.I cannot picture her in my mind unsmiling.I'll miss ya,Jonna.   

JEN…

   Four or five years back,I had been in the psychotic throes of a pointless heartbreak that eventually unraveled my whole personality for awhile and had me weeping,blind,

drunk,bloody-wasted,blacked-out in the street for close to two years.My Bar Friends,

Ellen & Artie who liked to party,introduced me to this beautiful,compassionate,sexy,kind girl named Jennifer.Jen was a mulatto sorta beauty with big eyes and perfect teeth who reminded me of another lost angel we called Spacey Tracey (R.I.P.).She just wanted to hang around and console me.Ellen & Artie used to take me and Jen dancing at this all black jazz bar on Bank St. in the ghetto,called Trotters,and me and Jen,in her blk.sequined dress/no underwear,we'd dance and kiss all night long.We slept together every night for a month,when I was living in Paranoid Jason's (R.I.P.) squat apt.,after Andy-Andy went to jail;but we never really,y'know,made it,'cause I was still too torn up over another old flame,and for some strange reason,women don't seem to find it that erotic when you're in their beds vomiting and weeping and snots drippin' from your nose in long strands,over some other woman.Mysterious creatures,aren't they?Anyway,she  got bored and finally dumped me for Young Ben,my drinking understudy.

   Eventually,she made a long series of poor choices,being an addict,and eventually disintegrated in a very public way,and,like me,was judged severely by that hard,

sleazy,gutlessly small-town,Sudsys' pecking-order with all their pious opinions and endless double-standards.A tragic shame.Even if,like me,in their eyes,she was a helpless,or seemingly insufficient,or even dispicable human being,she was a human being,y'know.Worst of all,She was somebody's Mommy.She's dead now.Yeah,it's horrific.

    To Clifton:WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE? WHERE ARE ALL YOUR STERLING ACCOMPLISHMENTS,BARFLIES? What important shit are you doin' with YOUR lives? Gettin' drunker and fatter,eatin' nachos,and watchin' college basketball on a broken barstool in a dirty college-campus scenester-pub full of inebriated half-strangers,back-stabbing each other,and sleeping with one another's mates,squandering their family's fortunes,while obnoxiously editorializing about those less fortunate,or those who came to seemy ends…year after year after fucking year?…Folks round here seem to think there's something to be gained by character-assassinating people in front of their children,or by speaking ill of a cadaver.These cut-throat yokels got no heart.

Everything's a race to them.Who's winning,clout,hipster-prestige,acquisition of plastic status-symbols,that's all that counts,all they seem capable of grasping,even when confronted with actual real life and death  tragedy.

WHERE'S THE MERCY?

It ain't at the coke bar…

God Bless ya,baby.I knew yer heart.

DONCHU KNOW IT IS WRONG TO CHEAT THE TRYIN' MAN…

   I can't even count how many deadend jobs I've had where I've endured some demeaning interview with a mindless tool/company jerkoff;shown up;put on the hairnet and brown uniform;worked hard;done the math;and realized yet another rich,selfish,

unscrupulous,sonofabitch wants to chump me out of hours,or not pay me at all…

If the so-called justice system wasn't merely a rigged sham, to protect the very interests of these same dirty,stinkin' crooks,I could rattle off five or six different names of former employers rightchere,who've refused to pay me for services rendered,and without fear of being sued for slander,cuz all these swines would know I was just telling the truth.A pox on these golf-shirts,these tiny tyrants,these selfish,swindling,greedhead vermin,who suck unskilled laborers dry,and spit them out,gloating…I've got children to feed…Just Pay Me.How do they sleep?

   Which is why I consistently beg my apathetic 13-year-old son to meet the minimal requirements at his School For The Creative & Performing Arts,explaining the nessecity of a graduate's degree in this spooky age,and how he doesn't wanna someday find himself winding up as a 29-year-old,doing something demoralizing for six bucks an hour,and having a 19-year-old asshole handing him the mop,whose only qualifications to be Assistant Manager are usually nice teeth,a knack for ass-kissing,and that confidence instilled in rich kids by wealthy,indulgent Mothers and soccer trophies:"When you get done hosing out the dumpsters,if you could hit the urinals and baseboards in the men's and women's restrooms before you leave,that'd be SUPER".

   …I desperately want him to stay in the game and get an education,so he can design action figures or comic books or video games for a living,and make some real money doing something he finds stimulating and rewarding,and be able to drive a car,and live in a big house,and enjoy some travel and freedom,not just flail helplessly from one bad,exploitive experience to the next,like his broken-spirited,wastrel father,the World's Oldest Bus-Boy.If it was just me,I'd probably be sipping something sweet and strong out of a coconut in Baja or New Orleans,or somewhere sandy,near the water,content to play the wicked roue' forever,I'm always lookin' for a nice place to lounge…but being's how I  get girls pregnant just by lookin' at `em,resulting in these three smart,sensitive,good hearted,glorious kids;my dream,my purpose,my mission,is to stay alive long enough to strike it middle-class someday,for them,before I croak.So I can at least pay for their school or give `em a house or start-up capital so they can go into business.Or something.

   How absurd is it,to be born into this world,without asking,and if you're parents don't have their shit together,be penalized from day-one,and eventually,forced into some kinda jiveass labor that doesn't even supply one with a living wage,let alone an "Anyone Can Be A Business Owner Or C.E.O. in Amer-ee-ka" outdated dream,and then,have to turn all that money over to the constant nagging of the Big Extortionists…the Insurance Companies,the Slumlords,the I.R.S.,the Man,etc.,What we got right here,right now,is obviously,Taxation Without Representation,here in the "land of the free and home of the brave." Whatever happened to "Life,Liberty & The Pursuit Of Happiness…," people? I understand the educated and prosperous among us don't appreciate hearing the whining of the working poor,cause everything looks GREAT with a pocketfulla credit cards from the window of an air conditioned office,with reggae music on the CD player,but I trust all you scholars in the audience here tonight know what the Constitution tells us our DUTY,as Americans,is,when our government becomes irretrievably corrupt.Right?

   Many Talk Radio Propagandaists continue to focus on tired tales of intern-blowjobs from years ago,but who cares----How about Paid-Off Presidential Pardons or vanished from the face of the earth mistresses or That Entire Last Fraudulent Presidential Election?!!"Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption will follow and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed…" (-Abraham Lincoln)

"Oh I Believe It's All Because Daddy's Paycheck Is Not Enough…" (-Wilco)

"I May Look Good On The Outside,But I'm Broken On The Inside…" (-John Easdale)

HE'S THE GALACTIC KID…

   If,like me,you're still waitin' for that evil,damned no-goodnik,Alice Starr,of the classic Triple XXX band,the ULTRAS fame, to rise from the ashes of shameful dalliances with disgruntled former Marilyn Manson sidemen and return to ultraviolet-like-splendor in some shining new incarnation,I've found something pretty exciting to tide you over until then.The ULTRAS video for "Galactic Kid" can be seen on-line at this awesome treasure trove of old L.A. punk,goth,and glitter punk,now dig this-www.hipmagazine.com! Amazing website!We're talkin' flyers,downloads,poetry,links,video,the whole shebang,starring the likes of Francois,and Inger,and Falling,and Johnette,etc.,etc.Rozz and Kommunity FK and Iris and Plez-the works! An orgy of West Coast Underground-cultural delights.You better go check it out.Who knows what happened to old Alice,Post-Dali Gaggers??

…& When are we gonna ressurect the Sonic Medusa,baby?

YOU LOST THAT ATTITUDE,YOU ACT SO OLD…

"Ah They Don't Let A Woman Kill You,Not In The Tower Of Song…" (-Leonard Cohen)

`I Will Wait Right Here For You…" (-Paul K.)

    Straight society,these lame suburbanites chasing strings,play-acting "cult of celebrity",are just never gonna accept me.No one can think for themselves in this town.Not the vinyl-clad chicks,or the record store owners,or the so-called rockers and musicians who run the bars,everybody's following the followers,still hoping to make a buck on other people's ideas that weren't that innovative or original to begin with.The mean-spirited in-crowd just like to ask me for creative-counsel,and utilize my stuff,but exclude me.People round here always want me to coach `em on their efforts to buy their fake "cool",or pretend they "rock",but they won't ever give me a job. Screw `em! High School Never Ends.Eighth Grade To Eternity is the story of our lives.

ALL THE NAMES YOU DROP ARE SECOND-HAND,I'VE HEARD IT ALL

BEFORE….

   It's interesting to me,these things I'm observing/experiencing since we've all started turnin' 29.Everybody's scrambling to get over the wall and into the sprawl,catching up with the herd,and cashing in on the latest trend.I don't blame `em really,it's sorta pathetic being me,like that Lester Bangs bio sez,"Thirty year old men aren't supposed to walk around in leather jackets,unemployed."

   Status-Seeking.I suppose that's how you keep a home together,though,huh? MP3 Players and New Cars.Pay-Per-View and $1,000 rents.Dollar signs and Haircuts…I hadda reduce the chemical intake to almost nil,cause it kept opening the lid on my id.These days, I'm feeling less like Rip Van Winkle with my beard,beer gut,and rusty gun,and more like the nervous hare,late for the tea party.Old friends have forsaken me,women leave,money changes everything.I dunno,man,I'm outta time.A laughingstock.A parody of a punch-line.It hurts.I got nothin',but bills,songs,fractured dreams,chronic worries,gorgeous kids,(No,you won't fool the children of the revolution…!) a bad reputation,ulcers,exes galore,hang-ups,heartaches,depression and shame.I'd do it all again.I hope someone out there is still rooting for us.Keep In Touch.Sorry For The Phone Bills.I can be contacted at BurntoutRecluse@aol.com Send me love,brothers and sisters.I'm here for you.

(DIMITRI MONROE CAN'T GET BACK TO THE SUMMER.)

LETTERS FROM A BURNT-OUT RECLUSE

"Only two kinds of people live here-the Users and the Used-and the gap between them gets wider everyday." (-Hunter S. Thompson)

"Freedom without opportunity is a devil's gift." (-Noam Chomsky)

"The first duty of a revolutionary is getting away with it." (-Abbie Hoffman)

"You did not have to leave me in tears…" (-Paul K.)

HOODLUM THUNDER

   Word on the street is my man IGGY POP'S back with a vengence,having finally rebounded from his divorce tribulations that had him sadly sulkin' in those unbecoming,mid-life dumps. Thank God! My ace bro,Ricki Dee caught Ig's live show up in Detroit last week,and said it renewed his faith in real rocknroll.Apparently,Iggy's even worked out a bunch of angry new songs with his leeching-delinquent guitarist,Whitey,that reportedly rock shit crazy.I wish I had his new record to listen to today,I could really benefit from the shot in the arm.It's a glimmery Saturday afternoon,I've been sitting on my rotting sun-deck in my tiny backyard full of birds, half-heartedly reading some library books,dreamily trying to write a new song,dreading work tonight,and waiting for my young son to wake up,so we can take the kids to Eden Park. Eveything should be glorious-my children are little wonders,my girl's a stone cold fox,but something in my ungrateful heart's not in the present.I'm glum as fuck.I need more pickle and relish…Slowly surrendering to this soulless suburban fast food `n' slow livin' paycheck mediocrity is just killin' my spirit.

    The felonious drummer's been outta jail for over a month now,but he's still caught-up in trying to reclaim a half-assed smalltown life for himself up North,forever delaying all my dreams and schemes of convening all my reckless merry-makers in the motor city

 ( http://community.webtv.net/i94rec/I94Recordings ) to finally record some more of our watermelon-flavored,hard pop/rock-candy anthems.So I'm just listening to the Junk Monkeys and trying to appreciate the butterflies and blue skies,but I'm stuck here in this loveless city where we have zero social-support and none of my champagne wishes are gonna come true.And this kinda weather starts workin' on my alcoholic's euphoric-recall,bringin' back all those illusory memories of good times gone,when me and my old gang still had an extensive record collection,a shitty stereo system,a blender,a bag of ice,some lawn-chairs,and beatup acoustic guitars,a band house in the ghetto,and the best years of our lives still ahead of us.I miss the freedom and the glory of my lost youth.The impervious,impenetrable self-belief…and while I'm loathe to invite the chaos of my chemical summers back into the lives of my children, I'm really tired of eating smalltown shit,cowering in the suburbs,sniveling in the shadows.I'm a broken record,a dull razor,an old  guitar that no one strums,the Last of the last of the last of the last,and how much more,babies,can you ask?

"OLD FRIENDS,YOUNG & NEW,WHAT'LL I DO WHEN YOU'RE GONE,TOO?"

(-GENERATION X)

"I USED TO DREAM & I USED TO VOW/I WOULDN'T DREAM OF IT NOW"…

(-MORRISEY)

   Turn this up and shut the door,we're not 16 anymore…All my merry men are married, buried,twice-divorced with restraining orders,drinking themselves to death on S.S.I.,or just stoned and dethroned,squeezed into seclusion.Even my courageous,longtime comrade,the International Snake-Charmer,and Depraved Sex-Hun,Ken McIntyre,the Sleazegrinder,is taking the plunge into domesticity and getting married to a beautiful starlette September First.The Dwindling Party's a hard act to follow,cause there's no tomorrow on this road of sorrows...Congratulations,brother.I'll be there with belles on…Myself?…I'm still just waiting for this one someone,and standing right here in the flames, chewing gum.

BABY,IF YOU EVER WONDERED,WONDERED WHATEVER BECAME OF ME…

"Obscenity is worse than war." (-Charles Keating)

"You drive us wild,we'll drive you crazy…" (-KISS)

  The repressed right-wingers and religious fanatics of Cincinnati have long been notorious for their over-zealous Anti-Smut crusading,their relentless war against "bad words" and "dirty pictures".Tirelessly campaigning against Flynt or Maplethorpe or "naughty bookstores",they say,"to protect our children."And yet…they're never outraged by "our children's" blood being spilt in the streets,or by this vulgar culture of authoritarianism,censorship,intolerance,violence and incarceration they've perpetuated here.White marks-man cops intentionally shooting black children,even with these so-called beanbag bullets,and unarmed suspects being shot dead is obscene.Multiple deaths of black men in police custody is obscene.Cops firing "bean bag missiles" and chemical irritants indiscriminately into crowds of protestors to oppress dissent, injuring innocents,women and children,is obscene.City Council Office-holders,news journalists, television anchormen,and vain "got mine" yuppies and former punx,who allow and encourage this kindof policing are obscene.Insincere,smartass,wise-guy,poseurs who trade in rocknroll iconography,but secretly appreciate the silencing of countervailing ideaologies are particularly obscene.Consensual adult sex? I'd call that,um,nature.

   Recently in Censornati,they've hassled more adult bookstore owners and the rich attorney who owns the Esquire,the indie/art-house film theatre;has taken to editing sexual scenes arbitrarily out of the films he shows there,doing right-wing "community standards" strong-arm,Sherrif Simon Leis', work for him.

LET FREEDOM RING,MOTHERFUCKERS…

   When between 2-300 demonstrators  showed up in Fountain Square to protest the Imperialist C.E.O.'s Secret Society meeting here,cops turned out in full paramilitary regalia with their shotguns brandished menacingly,arbitrarily sweeping through the crowd,arresting 52 protestors for randomly made-up violations.The local public defender then advised everyone to plead no contest,accepting jive plea-bargains; but those who held out for justice,doing time in jail for legally speaking their beliefs,were all exonerated when,case after case,their charges were dismissed.The arrests were illegitimate maneuvers,fascist scare-tactics to discourage protest.The police were instructed to silence dissent on behalf of these shadowy organizations using whatever tools nessacary.Shades of things to come…All this is common knowledge and well documented,but self-obsessed white Cincinnatians,like the creepy talk-show hosts of city council,seem to feel those "rabble rousing commies" probably "deserved" to have their freedom wrongfully taken away from them-merely for expressing unpopular beliefs in this very indoctrinated,conservative,ultra-programmed part of the country.It would seem that expressing concern for one's country,or planet, with sidewalk chalk and homemade drums are offenses that justify the use of force in this town.It's crazy.

SOMEBODY GOT MURDERED…SOMEBODY'S DEAD FOREVER…

   Weeks later,an unarmed nineteen-year-old Father named Timothy Thomas,who was being pursued for misdemeanor warrants,was gunned down and killed by a white cop, provoking days of rebellion,outcry,upheaval,and unrest.Protests,sit-ins at City Hall,civil disobedience,riots and looting and vandalism downtown.The young man had multiple warrants for his arrest,and I dunno about you,but I did worse stuff when I was 19 years old,than driving without a license and not fastening my seatbelt-the kinda charges he was wanted for.Thankfully,I did not get killed for my youthful transgressions.

   The racist lunatics and vain yuppies on the City Council then declared a "state of emergency",a form of martial law,declaring a city-wide curfew,but then,only enforcing it in black neighborhoods.

    Then,at the funeral of the unarmed black suspect,six cops-including members of Cincinnati's SWAT-team,showed up,firing this so-called "bean bag" ammunition into a peaceful crowd,some of whom were holding up signs against police brutality,wounding many,including an elderly woman and several children.Then,they got in their cars,and drove off.

   When asked to explain this criminal,thuggish,crazy drive-by shooting,and amoral police violence,Local F.O.P. President,Keith Fangmen,started carrying on about black-on-black crime,labeling all black protestors "terrorists" and suggesting they form a discussion panel to be called "Stop Killing Each Other",reasoning that more black men kill black men than white cops kill black men.And how most cop killers are black,which is obviously both false and irrelevant.This guy's not good at hiding his hatred of black people.Practically frothing at the mouth,"If we give one inch to these terrorists in the form of negotiations,then we've got no one to blame but ourselves when we turn into another Detroit or Washington,D.C.!" Towns where a lot of black folks live.This is what the local television news and newspapers have chosen to focus on,as well.Black-on-black crime in the midst of white police violence.

   Meanwhile,the officer who killed the unarmed 19 year old father has only been slapped on the wrist with misdemeanor charges.

Think about that…Misdemeanors.

   The "defiant black criminal",Timothy Thomas,was wanted for 14 misdemeanor warrants-petty,traffic-related violations,like not wearing a seatbelt.The white cop,Officer Roach,who recklessly snuffed out his life forever,is in less trouble…

   Most white people I've talked to in this community seem to agree that execution is a reasonable penalty for a fleeing black teenager resisting arrest.A parade then took place weeks later downtown honoring policemen killed in the line of duty with one thousand white Cincinnati suburbanites turning out to support their boys in blue."Police put their lives on the line everyday,so we shouldn't second guess them when they have to use deadly force."-And how `bout this one? "I brought my son down here today to teach him that if you respect authority,authority will respect you." Ha! What world does this guy live in? (Indian Hill,Hyde Park,or Mount Adams,obviously…) A lot of these people were from way out in like,Batavia and Anderson Township,nervous white ladies still terrified of Scary Negroes.Far out shit,huh? But wait-there's more! I passed by a church next to the Big Boy on Central Parkway today that had a sign up that read,"Remember Our Police Debt In Prayer." Talk radio,online message boards and all local media are barraged with letters from angry caucasions (!?) insisting,more or less,that the descedent "fugitive of justice",Timothy Thomas,had it comin',-he deserved to be assassinated for defying the long arm of the law,that it was his mother's fault for not teaching him better,not the brutal police-force-she should have taught him to blindly obey unjust authority-and that all these damned uppity black people need to shut-up now and "get over it".The white yuppies and fratboys are eager to,quote,"reclaim our downtown".

   The goddamned "news" is nothing but a tool of social control.How can these sinister talking heads live with themselves,spewing lies and cheap propoganda all day? Instead of the headlines screaming "Racial Injustice Prevails In Cincinnati",it's always all this endless hand-wringing over the tiny uprising downtown when some white jock bars got their windows broken.Our "courageous police" shot CHILDREN with "bean bag bullets".They KILLED a guy for running from them with seatbelt and driving under suspension warrants.He had a kid.

   I recently spoke about all of this to the white alternative "singer/songwriter" from a defunct major label "indie/alt" band who made some smarmy quip about the recent rebellion-echoing Status Quo Mayor Charlie Luken's assertion that the young black men involved with the uprising were just opportunists who wanted to loot gym shoes and raise hell because they're greedy and violent by nature or whatever.

   Talk about oppourtunists! This is coming from one of the privelaged and degree'd whiteboy record-collector types,who talks about Marvin Gaye and fuggin' Lou Rawls all day long,who tries to croon like a black soul loverman,who worships a certain white alternative-impressarrio who wants ta be a brother…and even HE don't get it.This was the only character from the music scene in-crowd who I thought might remotely be smart or sensitive enough to have some sortof sympathy for the families of the slain victim and other black/and/or poor victims of never ending police and judicial violence in this city/country/world.   

   On cable access,a couple weeks later,I saw many hours of a City Council "Public Safety" meeting's time given to an affluent,wasp property-owner,who was droning on and on and on and on about how the sounds of car stereos and ice cream trucks in her neighborhood were ruining her life because she wants to meditate in her garden.This was portrayed as a serious issue by the Mayor's young protégée,who solemnly vowed to champion her cause and take immediate action to address her crisis.

   Black kids who bricked the windows of the jock meat-market/college kid niteclubs on Main Street in the uprisings are being prosecuted for maximum felonies,but the white rich teens from Indian Hill,the millionaire part of town,who were using their expensive computers to operate a counterfiting ring,producing phoney currency,were only given 70 hours community service because the rich,white authorities decided they were,otherwise, "good kids,from good homes".

   I really want to move my family out of this city,love it or leave it,y'know? But my oldest son's Mother lives here,and I need to remain a strong presence in his life.It's a profound moral dillema.A tiger trap.My first priority is taking care of my own,and we gotta stick together no matter what the weather.The most common and costly mistake poor people make is in not staying the distance together-bands,couples,friends,parents.If you're ever gonna be a pirate king,first,ya gotta be willing to go down with the ship.When you're a jet,you're a jet all the way.I just know we'd be allowed to thrive and enjoy alot more oppurtunities in other communities where some other people share more of our ideas about what it means to be a human being.And Rocknroll.

PARTY FOR YOUR RIGHT TO FIGHT….

   A group of  righteous human rights leaders called the Black United Front has been diligent about keeping these issues of racist police violence and injustice in the public eye,even though White Corporate Cincinnati is desperate to sweep their ugly little secrets back under the carpet and get back to business as usual.White bureaucrats like Mayor "Status Quo" Charlie Luken (D) keep calling for "healing" and "celebrations",while anyone who cares about justice is still calling for justice.The whites are ready for more of that feel good blues-rock,and dancin' in the streets,oblivious to atrocities that don't disrupt their fragarant suburban lawns.

   Local activist,the Rev.Damon Lynch III,has organized a handful of small but effective protests downtown practicing civil disobedience,including occupying the restaurant/bar of the ritzy hotel in Fountain Square,disrupting yuppie office workers and business people's power-lunches,chanting slogans for a half hour,as they're always denied permits to "gather legally" in Fountain Square.This outraged the rich,white business people so much that they left death threats on the Rev.'s elderly Father's answering machine that night.

   Some of these protests were successful though,forcing the cancellation of Cincinnat's annual streetfest "Jammin' On Main",where rock-groups like BUCK CHERRY were scheduled to appear..Now the black community has called for a boycott of "A Taste Of Cincinnati",trying to hurt the status quo where it's effective-in their pocketbooks,since they're the only ones with the power to put their police force in check.Predictably,this has certain angry white members of city council so furious they can't help themselves but continue to blurt more racist statements publicly.I really hope this creep Phil Heimlich gets ousted from office in the next election.He's a dangerous,intolerant,self-serving rightwing prick. The Isley Brothers cancelled their scheduled appearance at "Taste Of Cincinnati" to support the boycott,so Mayor "Status Quo" Charlie Luken's called in James Brown to perform like he did in the Boston Riots of the Sixties.

   Poor,misguided James Brown thinks he's performing his civic duty,serving his country,but this is the same Godfather Of Soul who campaigned for Nixon,for fuck's sake,(back when Tricky Dick and Strom Thurmond were secretly trying to deport John Lennon for opposing the Vietnam War…) but that never stopped "the man" from incarcerating J.B.,the Hardest Working Man In Show Business,several times since then! Word has it that he showed but didn't play a real set because his community were apparently able to eventually get through to him;but I wasn't there,and the local media-spin's completely doctored to suit the interests of the powerful,so all I've heard is that the Status Quo Mayor's call for white people to show up downtown for the "Taste Of Cincinnati" festival,dismissing the black community's call for boycotts,were supposedly successful. Many white folk were quoted in the newspapers,the Post and Enquirer,making triumphant comments along the lines of,"We showed them Negroes".The Status Quo Mayor was especially vocal,casting himself as Mister Bourgeois Goodtimes:"No one's going to tell us when we can or can't have a celebration".Indeed,the racist establishment feel they have much to celebrate.They got their cop off with misdemeanor charges, flaunted their military might,and got the media to report the whole crisis only through the eyes of the powers that be…they must be very proud.

  When another "Constitutionally Guaranteed" demonstration was been scheduled to take place here in Cincinnati on June second,the police (Lt. Col.Richard Jancke,Chief Streicher) actually issued a chilling press release promising to "make use of all available tools" to terrorize the demonstrators including,"chemical irritants,bean bag ammo,and lethal force".Hard to believe? It was quoted verbatim on the Rupert Murdoch-owned rightwing Fox 19 ten o' clock news.This shit doesn't even sound real--does it? Standing up for your beliefs in this city has many dangerous consequences.My prayers and admiration are with those courageous,defiant souls who Pro-Actively resist this insidious culture of abuse and control…

   People who see abuse of authority,ugly violence,hypocracy,and injustice,but fearful,take no stand against these problems are guilty by complicity… Repeated beatings at the hands of the jock trendies and testosterone-drunk bouncers of Clifton have taught me first-hand the consequences of going against the prevailing flow in this town.It's really hard to stand up when you know they'll pummel you back down."Battle Ye Not with Monsters,Lest Ye Become One…" Sometimes ya gotta say what the fuck,though, y'know? Even if you know confronting the powerful is likely to get you hurt.I will always fight for freedom but I'm trying to get wiser about how I select my battles…

CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA…CINCINNAZI: KLANSVILLE,U.S.A.

   This shitville makes no bones about it's hatred of minorities.From former Cincinnazi Reds Owner Marge Schott's frequent use of "the N word" to Chiquita mogul/current Reds Owner/free press-opponent, Karl Lindner's multi-million dollar contributions to extremist rightwing politicians and fundamentalist lobbying organizations; to the radio station billboards that trumpet,"All Today's Best Music!Without the Rap!" to the relentless police racial-profiling and regularly roughing up of poor/crusty/black/drunk/homeless/crazy/powerless people and protestors; to the KKK being welcomed to Fountain Square every Christmastime,to the yuppies of Mount Adams not respecting the curfew following the rebellion (Mt.Adams Bar & Grill and other neighborhood pubs and restaurants stayed open,the police allowing the well-to-do caucasions and gallery owners to travel freely,while "state of emergency" violators in poor neighborhoods got beaten,maced and arrested and imprisoned and fined.) A lot of the rich white gays here are even racist Republicans and you know-to me,that's crazy.Then again, homosexuality is a worse crime in the redneck Midwest,and in black communities particularly,than being a rapist or a child molestor.It's fuckin insane.Who the fuck cares. Personally,I'm all about freedom-I don't care what's on your breath after midnite..."it's your thing-do what choo wanna do-I can't tell you who to sock it to"…So,you know,the gays and the blacks and the poor white people can't ever get it together to effectively combat their common oppressors.

  The big March For Justice that took place downtown in early June 2001,protesting the Cincinnazi-Business-As-Usual-Good-Ol'-Boy-Cop-Brutality,attracted lots of students,

hippies,rich liberals and suburbanite white folks of conscience,and the organized,from-out-of-town,activist cameras of the world,so the cops kept it pretty much in check, tolerating all this threatening free speech and public discourse with minimal violence until the yuppies went home,then they got back to their random arrests,pepper spray and skull-cracking when eighty protestors disrupted traffic in Mt.Adams to protest the bourgeois pigs flaunting their lawless privelage during the curfews.Assistant Chief, Lt. Col. Richard Janke walked around threatening writers, photographers and activists (!?) saying he'd have them "whacked" (-www.citybeat.com) and threatening to arrest writers present for scribbling notes when his boys moved in to "take down" activists.The cops also "politically profile" citizens,marking people in bandannas or black clothing as troublemakers.I also found it noteworthy how the baby-boomer yuppies of Mt.Adams' pretensiously named boutique,"Visionarie Art In Action" applauded the cops efforts to keep truth-telling out of their nauseatingly privelaged,rich-sold-out-hippies-oriented,pristeen, hill-top,caucasion bubble.All those goddamn Bob Dylan and Bob Marley fans on top of that hill who get all weepy and sentimental when they hear the FACES song on their new car commercials,are happy sell-outs who suffer no stigmas or self-awareness. Disgraceful pot-smoking,glass-blowing,artsy,hypocrites.

DISORDERLY CONDUCT & RESISTING ARREST

   If the cops in Cincinnazi don't like your clothes,you can be arrested for "disorderly conduct and resisting arrest".This is what they randomly arrest people for if they don't like the looks of ya-or one's suspected political views.The "resisting" part comes in when you squirm while being maced at point blank range,once handcuffed.All true.Business As Usual.All that bullshit they told you in school about freedom and human rights are only enjoyed by certain people-the rich,their tools,and those cowards among us who stand by and do nothing,hoping their silence will keep them warm and safe.  

OPEN YOUR EYES,SEE THE LIES RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU….

   In 1982,there were just twelve billionaires.There are now almost 600…You don't consolidate that kind of wealth without exploiting,enslaving,and when "nessacary",killin' a lot of people,bleeding the minions.Not only are these corporate robber barons,the actual welfare state recipients; poisoning the planet and executing,starving-out,or incarcerating everyone they can't enslave,but they control all media to indoctrinate us apathetic,confused Americans with crazy lies,falsehoods,and propaganda.Like the phoney drug war (actually just a war on civil liberties and the poor,they definitely don't want drugs out of the ghetto),the fraudulent election,the fake energy crisis,the myth of a "liberal-media",and the constant,never-ending "spin",or daily-history-revisionism.John Lennon sang about this shit in the 70's:"Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV/and you think you're so clever and classless and free/but you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see/a working class hero is something to be…"(www.michaelmoore.com)

    I'm no activist or student,no poli-sci major,y'know-just an ignorant rocknroll burn-out/eighth grade drop-out,right? But it ain't that hard to read between the lines if you pay any attention at all,to all the non-stop bullshit double-speak we hear everynight on the corporate news,or even National Public Radio at this point...Joey Ramone said shortly before his death that his dream was to own a radio station,but I don't think the FCC would allow us real folks,we,the people, to have access to the airwaves where we could play real music again and editorialize and ask each other questions on the for real.

     I hope everybody's b.s. detector's  have been be goin' off like beepers whenever the mainstream press refer to tiny ragtag street rebels as "anarchists" or  "terrorist aggressors" anywhere in the world-whether it's in East Timor,Cincinnati Ohio,Quebec,or anywhere.The U.S. Military are not often likely to be supporting the poor or oppressed anywhere on Earth…like with the P.L.O. conflicts in Israel.

   Our western corporate media always portrays the Palestinians as the aggressors or the unnessacarily violent ones,y'know? Everything's always reported from the perspective of the Israeli military,but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that somethings screwy when bands of occupied Palestinian civilians,poor people…dislocated street urchins with molotovs and half bricks,are battling powerful Israeli soldiers with tanks,helicopters and automatic weapons and American permission and support.I saw footage on PBS of a Palestinian man and his ten year old son being riddled with bullets by Israeli soldiers,but the U.S. corporate media is obviously in cahoots with Israel,because all we hear about is how the Palestinian rebels are intentionally martyring their own young,Arafat and company are always portrayed as terrorists,etc.,when it seems more like it's the Israelis practicing genocide,ethnic cleansing, human atrocities,etc. Which seems especially strange to an uneducated gentile like me,in light of what they,meaning Jewish people,experienced in WW II,how they could rationalize doing essentially the same shit to another culture,and with full U.S. support.Marlon Brando caught all kindsof shit for musing about the same issue on Larry King,but I bring it up cause I wanna know. WHY are the Jews killing the Palestines? Why shouldn't all groups of people be held to the same standards of civility?(I didn't go to college so if I'm offending you,don't get disgruntled,teach me.I have to ask child-like questions sometimes to learn and grow.)

    Our so-called mainstream/government's propoganda machine promotes and protects the corporate right and the rich and powerful always,never the victimized or oppressed.They'll spin it to look like the tyrant is misunderstood somehow,the victim.Like these talk-radio asswipes who call envirnmentalists "green nazis" or "feminazis"and claim the oil companies are the disadvantaged underdogs. Unbelievable!The public always buys this because who wants to pay more for gas or consider the possibility that we're actually the bad guys some of the time? The real imperialists.The evil empire? It's a lot more comfortable to look away and pretend to believe we live in a free and just society,who only goes to war to protect democracy and justice and all that clap-trap.We war everywhere for profit. Columbia,Iraq,we've got troops killing people worldwide right now.Including downtown Cincinnati.It's fucked."Protect & Serve" only refers to property owners.  

    For comprehensive,actually legitimate,and more objective,alternative news sources,

Check-out www.zmag.org or "Z" magazine and "The Progressive" magazine.The thing about the New Terrorist Scare is simple-anyone standing in opposition to U.S./Corporate interest$ will henceforth be branded a "terrorist".The cops in Cincinnati refer to peaceful civilian dissent as terrorism(!!!) The cops and the military and the DEA and CIA and FBI and ATF and IRS will always be portrayed as heroes and patriots even when they're murderous tools,"Just Following Orders…" Beware of darkness,children….

   What if you and me and all of our friends started withdrawing our complicity from the creeping fascistic global police state and sharing information and resources and uplifting one another? I dunno what our tiny efforts could accomplish.I still believe in the power of the individual(s).Even when I'm denied access to any reasonable,viable means of survival in this smalltown because of my beliefs and appearance and class and former lifestyle,I won't crap out.I know we gotta persevere and think for ourselves,but help educate each other,and we can make a little difference.I'm starting to read instead of watching that wicked TV ("His Master's Voice") and hope to buy a copy machine to resume my publishing,and trading of  ideas and support with other zine publishers in the near future,and dream of someday building a recording studio where authentic and  impassioned voices can record for free.All these producers and studio-owners and labels supposedly dig my music so much (Last of the Real Pop-Rock Super Heroes; America's Most Dangerous Sweethearts,DIMITRI MONROE AND THE NAKED FLAMES) but no one's offered to help pay to get it produced,or foot the recording bill,so you start to question their sincerity,especially when these same lame checkbooks are puttin' out all these sophomoric,punk rehash bands.

   I know I'll be accussed by some other misanthropic curmudegeon for sounding too hippy-utopian,but I really feel certain that all us outlaw underdog freaks and real punk street-urchins and whisky-bent rocknroll freedom fighters got to stop competing and work together if we want anything to get better.Freedom begins at home,babies.I'm gonna find a way to build a recording studio that's for music,not for profit.And when I figure out how,I'm gonna come right back here and teach you how,too.(www.freespeech.org)

RECORD COLLECTORS ARE PRETENSIOUS ASSHOLES….

   I had a fellow rocker/musician/and `Zine Publisher say to me recently how he doesn't ever wanna be one of those parasitical music journalist/bottom-feeders who are always begging people for free review copies (like me), but he's in a more fortunate economic position than many of us.Here's the bottom-line,the awful truth.If somebody wants me to hear their music,they're gonna have to send me a promo or make me a tape.The last CD I can remember buying was like,fuck…"Munki" by The Jesus & Mary Chain or Joe Strummer's "X-Ray Style",used,and that was a long while back.New major label CD's are $18.00,with like,pennies going to the artist ,so I simply don't ever pay that much for a CD.I buy all my stuff used,so the most I'm looking to ever spend is around $8-10,which is seldom `cause I'm really,really poor.Say I got $10 to spend on a CD,who the fuck am I supposed to buy?

The new DOGS D'AMOUR? THE SABREJETS? THE CULT? THE GO-GO'S? CHERRY 13? BROTHER WAYNE KRAMER'S MAD FOR THE RACKET or "BEYOND CYBER-PUNK" COMPILATION with JIMMY ZERO'S new group,LESBIANMAKER? NUTRAJET? JEFF DAHL? THE DEVIANTS? DAVE KUSWORTH? The ROCKET-TEENS? The DRAGONS? That DARLINGS CD on Bomp! I've only ever heard one song off of?,THE LOW & SWEET ORCHESTRA? THE CRUEL SEA? NICK CAVE? I've read some reviews of THE DIAMOND DOGS that compared them to THE LONDON QUIREBOYS AND THE FACES,my all-time faves…Will I ever be able to afford the new NINA ANTONIA-penned JOHNNY THUNDERS book,or THE ANDY McCOY documentary? IAN HUNTER'S new record,"Rant"? Or TEX PERKINS and SPENCER JONES records imported from Australia for $35 `cause I don't have a credit-card to buy `em on-line? (Right now I'm mostly listening to mellow old man shit,"Dad Rock", like THE DIRTY THREE,GUY CLARK,JOHN PRINE,THE GO-BETWEENS,EDWYN COLLINS,THE BOTTLE ROCKETS, JAYHAWKS, LEONARD COHEN, LEMONHEADS, WHISKEYTOWN, and AZTEC CAMERA.All the poncey middle of the road pop or insurgent-country or acoustic shit that sounded too pussy when I was a shitfaced,punknosed snot who only related to like, Poison Idea and the Action Swingers.) And like,the SEA HAGS.

   …OR do I risk feeling ripped-off buying some young new band I've never heard before who are current darlings of the underground press, ?…OR do I buy some tried and true album I loved in the past but lost in the course of these last few,lean and mean years? See?! I'm already in a depressing consumer-frenzy! I wish I could find a good job…poverty sucks.(By the way,the singer from THE BEATINGS has the most extraordinary line of custom-made rocknroll t-shirts I've ever fucking seen,at www.thebeatings.com,but the odds of me coming up with $15 for six used cassettes of 80's new wave and metal bands is a lot greater than `me ever coming up with $20,mailing it,and waiting for a t-shirt,but he makes like SMACK and MATERIAL ISSUE and TIGERTAILZ and HANOI ROCKS shirts,and he's a wonderful artist,so check his shit out.THE BEATINGS oughta go on tour with THE MYSTERY ADDICTS & THE DISARRAY GUNS!)

    Mostly,what I've had to resort to is going to the library and checking out cool classic rock discs like,you know,old R & B and GRAM PARSONS and THE ANIMALS and Eighties New Wave compilations,and geting my out-of-town -friends to make me compilation tapes, and every great once in awhile,like every three or four months,maybe I'll blow $15 on a half a dozen used cassettes from Half Priced Books,usually stuff I used to own on vinyl,because it's the most bang for my buck.When I hear people rattling on and on about their disposable incomes and antique jukeboxes and collector's vinyl buying sprees,I guess I'm supposed to be green with envy,but I've just had to gradually adjust my expectations and needs over the years,and I'm for the most part,now just as happy with a cs. dub of some album I love as with the gatefold sleeve,numbered,special-limited-edition,import-only,picture-disc,Japanese-fanclub,out-of-print EP with special bonus tracks,lyric sheet and glow-in- the-dark-skateboard-sticker,anyway,cause at this point… for me,it's all about the song. I've never been one of those elitist shit hoarders,claiming to be fans,who brag about their precious collections, but who never turn the lowly have-nots onto their preciously  inaccessible sounds,preferring to gloat selfishly about what they have that you'll never see or hear...To me,those guys ain't rocknrollers,they're just dickheads…I can't stand fucking shit hoarders.Shit hoarders,fuck right off.You know who you are.All the geeks in bowling shirts who wrecked that hotel at the Vegas Garage thing last year.

…But then,there's cats like my pal,TOM SHANNON from THE CHEATER SLICKS, who has a dusty house full of hard-won vintage records,who absolutely delights in making tapes for people and turning them onto cool and obscure stuff.He's an avid collector,but he's more like a librarian,a torch-keeper,a guardian of cool,preserving all this rock arcana affectionately,who generously clued me into much of my fave stuff,from The Scientists to George Jones and Buck Owens to the Pretty Things…Right on.Thanks For Being My Brotha,Tom.I love ya.-Incidentally,the CHEATER SLICKS are goin' back into the studio soon accompanied by Hollywood Bob Starker of SOVINES-fame and some shit-hot producer who's worked with the Stones,the Cramps,the Replacements, Mudhoney,Alex Chilton,etc. I can't wait to hear the results.

  Anyway,if you want to hip me to your group's music you can contact me about sending your promo materials for review in my inky,infrequent,rocknroll rant-rags,by e-mailing:

BurntoutRecluse@aol.com Badass Rocknroll I've heard lately that carries the full-on J.D.MONROE Seal Of Approval:BEBE BUELL,SONNY VINCENT,AMERICAN HEARTBREAK,BACKYARD BABIES,TYLA,JOHN EASDALE,NASH KATO,THE SCARECROWS,NOVA EXPRESS,THE FLESHTONES,CHEETAH CHROME,THE CULT,THE GUTTER QUEENS (HAR!HAR!),THE TRASH BRATS,SPENCER JONES,THE CRUEL SEA,TEX PERKINS,KIM SALMON & THE SURREALISTS,

THE BEASTS OF BOURBON,THE CHICKENHAWKS,ALISON GORDY,VERUCA SALT,TEENAGE FRAMES,THE DRAGONS,WHIPPING BOY,JEFF DAHL,TIPSY,& SOUR JAZZ.

    THE TRASH BRATS,LES STITCHES,& THE MALAKAS are touring through your town this summer.Do the right thing and make `em feel at home,alrite?-Oh yeah,I took my soul-sister, Phoebe Legere's advice and finally started checking some shit out on mp3.com--Former CIRCUS OF POWER crooner,Alex Mitchell has some badass psychotronic biker swamp rock on there called SHOW-BIZ AL & THE SPACE WARRIORS that's pretty badass. Ricky Beck Mahler,phone home.

SOMETHING IS BROKEN IN THE PROMISED LAND….

   While everybody I know is scrambling desperately just to barely survive,Viagra spokes-model,and Pepsi pitch-man,SEN.BOB DOLE and his rich grey peers have drummed up over 160 MILLION DOLLARS,an incomprehensible sum of money,to ERECT another war  monument to veterans of the second world war.Now I got some good friends and sacred-beloved family members who fought in that war and I respect and appreciate them with all my heart,but don't nessacarily agree that kinda money oughta be spent on a war memorial when millions and millions of people are suffering,hungry,sick,homeless, wrongly imprisoned,and living like dogs here and all over the world.But obviously, Washington  doesn't give a rat's ass about how you or I might feel regarding anything,being as how we're not billionaire special interests,war mongers,or international corporations.One advantage Bob and the boys are happy about is that there might not be room for anymore of those pesky million man marches or civilian demonstrations when they "get it up",the monument that is,on the national mall in Washington.If the "Greatest Generation" were fighting WW II to preserve the cause of freedom and humanity,why don't we do something to support those aims with all that money in their name? Like Washington needs more fucking statues.

…

LUNATIC FRINGE DANCIN' & THERE ISN'T ANY DOOR…

   Somedays,here in my lonesome,12-step-drop-out abstinence,I don't even know who I am no more.I'm so completely cut-off from the neon-lit night-time world I knew.Mister Carpet Burn? Who's He? Any relation to Mister Unhealth? Everybody loved my evil alter-ego,but I got up from the barstool for 15 minutes,and now I'm the lonely planet boy-it's fucking weird.It still feels like a lot of people in my geographical sphere are caught-up in playin' out a real-life version of "Survivor",me-I ain't forgeing no crafty alliances out here,so I'll always be the first one voted off the island."The tribe has spoken".I know I stand alone.But hell-I don't really want relationships that are like chess games.Here in the republican suburbs,in the middle age wasteland,it's all a race for gold.Status Seeking.Power Tripping.All the upper-class squares fantasize about being poor and dangerous rocknroll cowboys,while us white-trash outcasts wish we had access to studio-time,easy livin' and steady incomes like the rich and supposedly "popular" ones,and therein,lies much of my local conflict.

   Of Course,I'm familiar with all the arguments about Brian Jones and Gram Parsons and half my fav'rites being from wealthy backgrounds,it just annoys me when people seem to imply that their access was earned,based on their talent,rather than primarily purchased by their families.

   Recently,I had a girl tell me there was obviously something wrong with my psychological development,because what I value,my core beliefs,have nothing to do with consolidating economic power,or lording over others.I'm only into music and art,laughter and singing.My children and friends.Love and hope and sex and dreams…Nick Kent and Nick Drake.Arthur Lee and old Smash Hits magazines,bongo drums and tiki torches,harmonicas,purple bikinis, spontaneous roadtrips,Paul K. & the Prayers,and Snake Dog Ale…Big Star and Duran Duran.FREEDOM…BABY…FREEDOM.Whereas,like so many in this era,she likes to compete,she lives for the perfect halter top,and has found a system to insure she always gets it.Good for her.Like Kid Creole once sang,"I will never be like Endicott…"

   These tiny tyrants and mini-moguls here are just so unimaginative and completely duped by the culture of control and consumerism,that they're inevitably really threatened by anyone who won't beg to join their rank and file…Even if we can't beat the system, let's not let the system beat us.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE TEENAGE DREAM?

   The paychecks who are currently employed to sell you manufactured pop shite like the White Stripes and Delta `72,No Doubt and O-Town,Wyclef Jean and Rob Thomas,continue to appall me.Smarmy Rolling Stone hack,Rob Sheffield,basically celebrates everything I stand in opposition to in every issue.And gets paid for it.I'm always broke so I check RS out of the library to keep up on Scott Weiland and Zach De la Rocha….One of his latest columns is about how groovy it is that Puff Daddy's lolita girl group,Dream,are being decked out in T.Rex and Johnny Thunders t-shirts by overpaid hipster-stylists,and he thinks that's really kool.Rick Johnson and J.Kordosh,where are you when we need you? Dozens of overpriced glossy rock mags but they're all full of trendy,phoney lies and trustfunded bullshit.

There's virtually no real rocknroll press left in America aside from the HITLIST, which is mostly great because of Sleazegrinder (Makes stoner-rock seem almost appealing!) and Rockin' Jeff Bale (Loved his piece on the California Dream!),and IN SPITE of all the sissy emo and cowboy-hatted Rev.Horton Heat/The Nuge-influenced redneck punkmetal shysters…

   Flipside folded.Motorbooty folded.Pop Smear folded.Big Takeover's great,but maybe a little dry and academic…CARBON 14's pretty good,but a little too…on the hipster-chic,eightballs and hotrods side of town,for my taste,y'know what I mean?-The slick underground rag for people who own jukeboxes and trendy animal print furniture and serve martinis,to keep in their bathroom to impress their porkchop-sideburned friends-I write for `em… Rocknroll Outbreak's promising,and home to some good young writers,but ultimately,mainly functions as the Pelado Record's newsletter.I liked the "Be The Media" issue of Punk Planet with the Howard Zinn piece,but I've never really gotten along with vegetarian Fugazi fans who carry cell phones and wear camoflauge shorts to college on Big Papa's dime…'Saw one of them overpriced,slick "gen y" mags called Flaunt-it was all advertisements and pictures of anorexic models and tanned guys who dress like only me,Ratboy,and Thee Hypnotics did in '91,and the obligatory Michael Stipe fuggin' photo-essay.It's a damn shame that little bands,who come together on their own accord,can't get nowhere in popular music today, cause I know lots of folks who are every bit as mediocre as Michael Stipe,and capable of just as much pomposity!

…Australia's Cat Scratch Fever,the brilliant Vicious Kitten Records newsletter,is available online and definitely worth checkin' out…Britain's MOJO remains outstanding,despite the prohibitive import cover-price and tendency to relentlessly worship Pink Floyd and Radiohead with the kindof unbridled passion the Big Takeover reserves for R.E.M. and Radiohead;…Power Pop Geeks and Rocknroll Burnouts,alike, should check out NOW WAVE MAGAZINE starring Josh Rutledge-the Richard Meltzer of the Millenium! www.geocities.com/nowwave/ …The Always Engaging FIRST CHURCH OF HOLY ROCKNROLL website is home to one of my alltime fave rock writers,Phil Overeem,but they're gonna try to trick you into expanding your musical horizons,be forewarned, http://povereem.mypeoplepc.com/ and…Lastly,Jeff Dahl's SONIC IGUANA continues to reign supreme,as far as American underground rock mags go.Mike Frame's a great writer and Ultra-Under-rated,JEFF DAHL,the last of the hardcore troubadours,don't get the crdit he deserves for being the missing link between THE LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH/DOGS D'AMOUR and the late nineties wave of trashy punknroll lead by such groups as THE HUMPERS/ELECTRIC FRANKENSTEIN.Send $4 to SONIC IGUANA PO BOX 1867,CAVE CREEK,AZ 85327 USA -Shit,Sioux City Pete even writes for `em! In the last issue,Black Halos singer,and Sub-Pop recording Artist,Billy Hopeless talks about failed rockers who are forced into abandoning their lifelong dreams to get straight jobs, becoming intollerably embittered,and that really hit home hard `round here at Never Was Central."My name's Forgotten!"…The always smashing SONIC IGUANA regularly features shit like ROSE TATTOO,BEAT ANGELS,ALICE COOPER,THE RUNAWAYS,'all the keenest acts in the ultra-underground realms of glam-trash-punk.Get it while it's hot!

Gone But Never To Be Forgotten:Joey Ramone,Top Jimmy,Ed "Big Daddy" Roth.R.I.P.

I'm Still Seeking/Waiting To Hear From:Brijitte West,Tony Meter,Ian Astbury,and Nina Antonia.Gimee A Call…A great lawnchair or hammock book for this summer is "GIVE ME LIBERTY" by GERRY SPENCE...Michael Moore.com teaches you how to fight the death penalty and phoney drug war.I guess that's all for now.xxx D.T.K. L.A.M.F. Your ol' pal,Dim Star*

(-JASON DIMITRI MONROE ENDORSES GROAMY CD'S ON MAIN STREET IN LIMA,OHIO)

"You Have the Right To Free Speech So Long As You're Not Dumb Enough to  actually Try It!" (Joe Strummer)

FASTEST WAY DOWN…

   I remember the night George Bush Sr. started bombing Iraq. In an effort to whip up populist,anti-Arab sentiment,the network news kept warning that "Sodom," as the President liked to call him,had elaborate terrorist networks already in place in all of our major American cities,who would be immediately retaliating against us,those mad bomber-camel-jockey-sand-nigger-sonsa-bitches,--resulting in widespread panic,many racist,redneck bumper stickers and Arab-Americans getting beat up on college campuses.

   I had three close friends fighting in that conflict,but at the time,I was a dumbass, drunken,hard-on in animal print trousers and cop shades-obliviously apolitical,sucked into the whole dumbfuck-David Lee Roth-Mojo Risin'-Jack Daniels-Marlboro Man- Party All the Time-Rocker Shtick.It hurts to recall this.

   I was on a mission of an entirely different sort than my Catholic school pals who'd joined the Marines,and more than willing to even risk a run-in with one of these wild-eyed,biological weapons of mass destruction-totin' sheiks,on the streets of New York,armed only with a cassette demo-tape,and the cocksure attitude of a twenty year old who thought he could stay young and stoned and beautiful forever.Or at least until the contents of the hip flask secreted in his wine colored brocade smoking jacket ran out…

   Weeks before,I had read in Kerrang!,the English heavy metal bible,about this singer,Billy G. Bang,leaving the Kill City Dragons,the best dressed glam dandies of their day,boasting two former members of the Lords of the New Church (!),to join Andy McCoy's similarly-shoddy,Post-Hanoi cock-rock-metal-band,Shooting Gallery.So through mutual friends,I fired off a letter saying I'd replace him,and heard back immediately from drummer,Danny Fury,who said that he was in London,but to show up on guitarist Steve Von Saint's doorstep in NYC if I wanted the gig.

   I had just "fired" my guitarists,Little Dave Weir (now a biochemist!) and Nasty Bastard  over a borrowed bass in their care that came up missing,belonging to a friend of mine,so I got my virtuoso,progressive-goth friends,Siren Cheryl and Guru Frank,of Boston's darkwave,DreamChild,to help me throw together a quick demo-tape,two "Rebel Yell"-style,wanky, Doorsy originals-"Anita Pallenberg Blues" and "Boys and Dolls in Toyland".The drum machine bit,but everything else coulda been Cult demos.But dumber.So I showed up at the address Danny Fury gave me and a bleary-eyed blonde told me to call back later,he wasn't up yet,gave me the number,and before I could explain I had no place to stay,shut the door in my face.Hours later,I called from Famous Ray's Pizza and Mister Von Saint tells me to meet him at some niteclub at midnight-either Limelight or the Ritz,can't remember which one.

   I loitered around my old East Side haunts for a few hours,where I'd lived as a sex-crazed runaway teenager,and eventually made my way to the bar to see this guitarist. There he was,all decked-out in a black bolero hat,scarves,twenty-five concho-straps,rings on every finger.Steve Von Saint,shamelessly garbed in his finest Andy McCoy regalia, cutting a pretty mean glam-decadent nightclub profile,silhouetted underneath the reddish lights,tryin' to look so nonchalant and draggin' on a cigarette.Sadly,he was pretty much an asshole to me.It kinda struck me at the time that he was possibly even just ACTING fucked up,eyes heavy-lidded,speech slowed-down,but possibly, "just pretending," like maybe he was thinkin' he should act like Andy,but who knows? I guess he thought I was either too young,or not pretty enough,or wasn't impressed with my threads,but I'd come all the way from Boston on a bus,in the midst of a war with Iraq,that they kept telling us was liable to spill into our streets at any minute and he wouldn't even listen to the tape.

   I told him about being a big Angels In Vain fan from when I was a kid,hangin' around Enzs,the St.Mark's Place Pirate Shop where some of `em worked, admiring the tall tales told by Scarlet Rowe and Elka Brandt and Lisa Genre and Stiv Bator and Kelly Nichols and one of the guys who was later in Princess Pang, going so far as to even have gotten a tattoo,which,obviously,I still have,"Angel In Vain",(a phrase that once seemed to suit me better as an individual,than their long-forgotten NY band,) and how my recently fired guitarist,Little Dave Weir,was a drop-dead Joe Perry clone with a gift for Wayne Krameresque lead guitar,and how we could be heroes just for one day etc.,but Von Saint just asked if I could sing high,like Axl,and that dude from Nazareth.I said no,but that I could probably sing as good as Billy G. Bang,and that if he'd just listen to the fucking tape,he'd know I could write shit that was cooler than "Devil Calling",the Dragons hit.That he'd written. Good,huh?

   In retrospect,both those songs mostly suck,my twenty year old,sub- LeBon/Morrison/Astbury, pretentious stabs at poetic-grandiosity and mystic-sounding dribble...but like I said,still cooler than "Devil Calling," but I guess I offended him,or he was high,or didn't give a shit,or whatever,and mumbled some jibberish I think about plans to work with this British guy named Nick who worked at some rockstar boutique called Mudhoney,before melting into the crowd,and missing his big chance.

   Meanwhile,my school yard chums thought they were in this foreign land trying to defend democracy from this communist dictator,only to learn,years later,that Kuwait was also a dictatorship,our government had put the Hitler-like Madman Trying To Start A World War into power in the first place,and that it was really all about him no longer accepting orders from our intelligence community and

Western oil interests.The Iraqi army tried often to surrender,and in many cases,our military still mowed them down, assassination style,with their arms behind their heads.We've imposed these sanctions for so long and bombed them so much now throughout these past ten years,unbeknownst to most Americans,that the children are starving and the uranium deposits are causing birth defects.When George Bush Jr. was installed into office,their aggressive military campaign immediately resumed,picking up where Dad left off.With still more rhetoric about the need to rebuild our weakened military.

    The U.S. government had learned in the Vietnam era how bloody footage of real war casualities on the nightly news polarized anti-war sentiment,so in the Gulf,all they showed was Wolf Blitzer screaming in the wind from some roof top and faraway video-game footage of "smart bombs" and "surgical strikes", maintaining there were next to zero civilian casualties.They lied,and we believed them,like we always do,out of tradition,and respect for our fathers and grandfathers who fought wars,and 'cause we're supposed to be the good guys, right? I haven't seen this re-run of  "Friends"…"MTV Cribs" is sooo cool…How `bout that Carmen Elektra?

   The corporate/network media and CNN only report sporadic mentions of "air-strikes over the no-fly zone." What this means is our government is still secretly at war with Iraq,bombing them,civilians,innocents dying,because Dick Cheney and the Skull `N' Bones boys want their oil,or at least,to continue consolidating

Western Powers as the Ultimate Empire.I mean,I'm not a political expert,I'm an eighth grade drop-out,I probably can't even give you an accurate definition of the word "Communism," honestly. I do know we've never stopped bombing Iraq,and the Presidential Election in this country should have made it pretty clear to everybody by now how dedicated we are to preserving real democracy,even here, let alone,abroad.A couple of families and a couple of corporations are stealing everything;the system's completely,openly corrupt;the rich in this nation are robbing and enslaving and incarcerating and killing the poor, while poisoning the planet unnecessarily, for profit;and we've been lied to our whole lives.And like Perry Farrell sang on that masterful,first Triple XXX record,"I just wanna fuck".

KEEP THE FAITH,BABY,YOU BROKE THE RULES AND WON…

Joey Ramone died today.

   Unlike most people who're into glam-trash-punk,the Ramones were never my favorite band,maybe because in high school,I wore little round Lennon-specs and somebody told me I looked like Joey Ramone everyday for ten years.I was always more of a Deadboys partisan.I didn't like the fact that Johnny was supposedly a staunch,Pro-Military Republican,or the way they seem to treat Dee Dee,no matter how fucked-up he was.

   There was never any denying, though,that Joey was a True Original,A Real American to be proud of,someone who gave a shit and contributed a lot without ever getting enough in return.When I heard songs like,"I Want You Around" and "D'ya Wanna Dance" and "I Remember You" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," I couldn't help but feel the tug of my heart-strings.Even latter-day Ramones stuff,like "I Believe I