Gather ‘round kids, I’m going to tell you a story
about the Ramones, yes that Ramones, the original punk band, and how they
showed up at my apartment door one night.
But first, you need to understand who the Ramones
were to me and to my compeers and really to anyone with a pair of ears. As an
east coast transplant, for me they were the kids next door who done good; they
were the boys in the garage who hit it big; they were the nice guys who found a
lucky break with a great sound. As far the scene that I was in at the time, some
punk bands demanded a whole lot of commitment to feel a part of them, like
tattoos, spiked hair and ripped clothes. The Ramones weren’t like that, there
was no flash and no pretense. They didn’t portend a cult-sense to appreciate their music. They were every syllable punk rock and roll. And it
wasn’t by accident.
We could all agree on the Ramones.
In the 1990s, I was living in the foothills of
Hollywood. It was a decent place, nothing fancy but clean and safe, certainly for
Hollywood standards. There was a pool, so many of the tenants knew each other
and we were all pretty friendly. A new girl moved in, down the hall and on the
same floor as me. She was odd, for sure, loud, needy, and a bit whiney. She had
“a caretaker,” was how the apartment building manager described the guy who was
always with her. He seemed like he was just some guy who made sure that she
didn’t fall off her bar stool when he wasn’t falling off his own. Even though I
wouldn’t testify to this in court, there was definitely some kind of
“substance” involved. We’ll call her “Cathy” because no one else did and that
wasn’t her name. I don’t remember the caretaker’s name. What I remember most
about him was the first time that I met him when they had just moved in and
were new to Los Angeles. It was on the roof of the apartment building during
the LA riots in 1992 as we all watched the city ablaze. Hollywood Boulevard
looked like Kuwait and the news copters overhead were almost deafening. There
were no cops to be seen anywhere. Cathy’s caretaker, scrawny wet-noodle of a
guy, puffed up and started talking shit about how he could hold his own, “Let
them try to get in here, I’ll stop ‘em at the front door. Blow some heads off…”
Not the sound mind you want to be around in an already tense situation. His
bloviating ignited some other testosterone-carrier to mouth off about what he
was holding, and then the next guy started—and before you know it, they were
all giving an inventory of their ammo and arms. The whole conversation had me
on edge, being as we were all stuck so close together. Scrawny caretaker guy
won the pissing contest by claiming that he had three 450 magnums and a machine
gun with a couple of magazines. It could’ve been all talk, but someone on that
roof was telling the truth.
Cathy and the Noodle weren't real social. They didn’t mingle well with others. I always assumed that
they preferred the company of their substance. They were loud and then they’d
turn it down, and then they’d be loud again. I heard rumors that Cathy was an
old friend of the Ramones, she grew up with them or something like that in
Queens. She was in some kind of car accident with one or more of them and she
got quite messed up and they took care of her. They helped her out. Every so
often, she’d disappear for a month or more at a time. One day the caretaker was
taken away on a gurney and we never saw him again. One time, she was gone for a
couple of weeks and left her apartment door wide open with the radio blasting.
It was a couple of days before anyone went in there. I poked around, was too
curious not to but I didn’t touch anything. The place was in much better shape
than I had imagined. She had nice framed photos of herself (not looking at all
like she did at the time) with different people, family maybe friends and some
might’ve been members of the Ramones, but I couldn’t be sure. No one in the
photos had their signature hair styles or fashion sense and I know that they
didn’t always look like that themselves. So, they might’ve been old friends and
taking care of Cathy.
Eventually, Cathy got a dog. And that dog was going
to get lonely, so she got another dog. During a brief elevator trip we shared, Cathy
was taking her dogs out for a walk and told me how they were going to help her
get her act together. I mumbled “good for you, good for them” or something
equally inane.
I never saw her with the dogs again. The dogs didn’t
go away. The two cute little white Pekingese pups were holed up in her
apartment. She’d lock them in her bathroom when she was out.
Cathy’s bathroom window faced my bedroom window with
the pool courtyard below which echoed sound. Specifically, it echoed the sounds
of the two forgotten pups in Cathy’s bathroom. The dogs yelped and cried and
this went on for weeks. I talked to the apartment manager about it and she
talked to Cathy. I left notes for Cathy about her unhappy puppies. I called the
animal control bureau. They wouldn’t do anything unless someone actually saw
abuse.
August 6, 1996, I was about six months into a
year-long migraine headache when Cathy was out for the entire day and evening
and the doggies were locked up in their bathroom. I was confined to my quarters
with a cool towel over my eyes. It was me and it was them. And then it was me
versus them. Around midnight, it was them versus me with the dogs winning. I
don’t know exactly what they were winning but it felt like they could run off
with my sanity as soon as that bathroom door opened. If it ever opened again
and they’d shut the hell up. Oh, damn you Cathy and your problems. You’re nothing
but another damn self-centered drug addict. I have problems too. “Shit,” I’d
curse Cathy, “the woman is a mess and she breeds her problems into everyone
else’s life and blah blah blah.”
It was church quiet in the building except for the
two yelping Pekinese pups. I was wide awake and miserable as no medication
could provide relief, with or without the Pekinese. It was no surprise when at
3:00 AM I could hear Cathy coming into the building on the first floor and
rumble her way up the elevator and down the hall. She was cursing, there was
talking, and some falls. I got up, put on a robe, and opened my apartment door
and stood in the doorway and waited. Suddenly, I was Mrs. Kravitz from Bewitched.
When did this happen to me? I had no time to think it through I needed to
straighten out Cathy about dog care.
Cathy barreled down the hall, bouncing off the
walls, and I stood in the doorway with my arms folded over my robe. When Cathy
was in front of my door, I called her name. She wasn’t alone. Cathy stopped,
looked at me with her tear-stained donut glazed eyes and jello’d knees. Hey ho,
Cathy was with the Ramones. I swear as I am breathing, the five of them stood
there, two of them holding up Cathy. I
immediately recognized Joey and Johnny, I’m not sure if the other two were C.J.,
and Marky or one of them might’ve been Dee Dee. Mrs. Kravitz adjusted her tone
(which, as a friend pointed out, only made me all the more like Mrs. Kravitz). I
said something along the lines of, “you got to do something about your dogs,
they’ve been barking and crying all night.” Feigning selflessness, I added, “It’s
not good for them.” Cathy stumbled and mumbled, “Help me, they’re trying to
kill me.” It was clearly drunk bitch babble. The four gentlemen and they truly were
gentlemen, apologized profusely. They promised that it’d be taken care of and
the dogs would not bother me again. I thanked them. Yes, after more than 12
straight hours of yapping Pekinese, I thanked them.
Yes, I wanted to shout after them that once upon a
time I had been cool. I wanted them to know that I wasn’t always Mrs. Kravits
and that if it wasn’t for the gawdforsaken migraine that I might have been at
their show that night.
It turned out that was the night of their last gig.
They must’ve just come back from the Palace (a few blocks away). I know one
biographer has stated that after the show, without many words, they each left the
theater on their own and went their separate ways. Not exactly, first they had
to take care of some lose ends at Cathy’s.
There was no end-of-the-tour rowdy party that night,
as one might imagine. Cathy’s apartment was quiet. I heard them leave, not
together. They were soft footed and soft spoken and, it seemed to nosy
neighbor Mrs. Kravitz, they left one at a time, on their own. I don’t know what
happened to Cathy and which one of the Ramones she grieves the most.
I never heard the dogs yelp again. Cathy still had
the dogs, maybe she stopped locking them in the bathroom.
I’ve witnessed fame drag people down like a tidal
wave, destroying exactly what made them famous. I saw the Ramones on the other side of
that tidal wave and they stood up like good people on a journey.
They have responsibility for making a generation ‘wanna
be sedated’ while causing major adrenaline rushes. They made a lot of people
very happy. Their music will survive and can drown out any yapping dogs.
Happy journey guys! Bark bark.
A respectful nod to
Charlie Haden, who also died this week. Unfortunately, Charlie never showed up at
my door.