Joey Ramone
Friday, April 13th, 2007
The King is Dead
By Marissa Walsh
Elly pointed out the window of the Graceland shuttle bus and shouted, “That’s Joey Ramone!” We were done with our tour and were about to disembark back at the souvenir shop/parking area when she came through with the Beach MTV Call of the Day. That was how we spoke back then, in college, when we did things like go to Graceland. But how much of a call was it? I mean, you can’t be wrong about Joey Ramone. No one else looked like him. He was sauntering around with a big bag of souvenirs. He was wearing a Ramones T-shirt. He was visiting the King. I took his picture. And then we followed him around a bit and giggled and whispered, “Beat on the brat. Beat on the brat. Beat on the brat with a baseball bat. Oh yeah.” It became our trip soundtrack. We didn’t speak to him. He was too scary. Dee Dee and the others were there, too.
No one else seemed to know who they were.
Joey>>Flickr>>Creative Commons>>Bog King
Great story; lucky you… But you really should’ve spoken to him — that was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The only rock musician equal to or greater than Joey is John Lennon, and now they’re both gone. You shudda said something!
Oh, how I wish we had. But, to quote Dexy’s Midnight Runners, we were far too young and clever. And even though I was at Graceland I was at that age when I just assumed all those people would be around forever. Cobain died a few weeks later. Now I know better.
Thanks for the comment!
I have quit YouTube and will be committing ritual suicide online.
The Rock Star life is just too much for me.
Here is my farewell video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mpkAdaG9yU