I have a fairly startling revelation for you all. Not “I secretly killed a hobo and buried him in my backyard” startling, but startling nonetheless. I’ve never heard the Ramones before. Actually, that’s not true. I’ve heard the Ramones hundreds upon thousands of times in commercials, movies or whatever, but this past weekend was the first time I heard an entire album (as a non sequitur, do we still call them albums? I mean what does one call the thing that you buy that’s got a bunch of songs on it? I’ve never even bought a (new) album before, yet that’s what I’ve called them since time immemorial). Now for someone who considers himself even a mediocre music fan, this is a bit of a travesty, but to someone, such as myself, who would like to consider himself a music connoisseur, this is a complete joke. And, of course, upon listening to them, the opinions of the hundreds of thousands of fans who have acclaimed the Ramones as a breakthrough, spectacular band were all made clear to me as being spot on.
Ok, so now that I’ve been enlightened, I think the thing that strikes me more than anything is a dual feeling of sadness. I’m sad because the Ramones are broken up, Joey Ramone is dead, and we’ll never be blessed with this music again. Whenever I come upon art of this sort and realize that the artist will never again be available to produce this kind of quality stuff, it just makes me feel like there’s a void in the world. This is particularly curious, since, before being exposed to the art, the void was already there and I just didn’t know about it. I guess it’s kind of the personal sense of loss I feel. I felt the same thing after I had seen “The Rat Pack” and realized what a total fucking bad-ass Sammy Davis Jr. was.
The other feeling of sadness is how I worry how much missing out on the art negatively affected me. Not to the point where I was depressed and I wouldn’t have been if I had heard “Judy is a punk” when I was 15, but it’s just such an amazing experience to hear something or see something that you realize is wonderful, and that for the past 15 years I’ve missed out on that. I guess that I should just be happy that I’ve seen it now, and call it a day.
D