yes, i know what you are thinking.

Why doesn't he write more about the Ramones?? I get so many emails on this, and while I wrote them, spell checked em, and sent them off to myself, they are still quite impressive in their number.

Okay, You Know My Position On Chronic Assholism ? shoot those pushy, snooty little poofs. Fire for their heads!!! I say!!!! And Joey Ramone is, by his own reckoning, a mean asshole.

No, not really?. I write shit like this sometimes and then think of Matthew Hale, him being a real honest to dog, full of shit from head to foot, racist, and realize that if you are NOT laughing as you read this kill kill crap that I am writing, and are, indeed, just nodding along and thinking ?Yes, yes? they do deserve to die,? please forgive?. but, much as they deserve to die, that doesn?t mean that I am promoting violence; no, no?. it?s true? I am just trying to make myself laugh despite the decay (blame this long, long sentence on an early obsession with Henry James). I can wait for the fruition of the The Mighty Beat Them To Twitches and Moans Hamster Army.

Oh, yea, the Ramones?. They were assholes and weird, weird people? who inspired a lot of cool acts. I wish I had seen them play sometimes now, but they?re almost all dead at this point. I never hear them, and I don?t buy music, really?.. the dvd?s cluttering this place are of course the pack rat M?s, even though all are of course at the mercy of my destructive nature and stoned stupidity? so she doesn?t much approve of my using them anymore

Okay, I hope that cleared up the Ramones question that has been giving you all those sleepless nights and forcing you to have to stare at pictures of puppies for hours to break your pathetically dark moods? Maybe this can be a first step toward quieting all the voices in your head telling you to kill and play with feces and stuff? Probably not. At least the one asking about how I feel about the Ramones will stop driving you to email me all hours of the day and night with questions about Dee Dee and stuff. I am a half deaf writer who sings in a voice so out of key that I can actually make nearby squirrels scream in terror and fall over and just lay there twitching until you kick them, so I don?t know why you would bother asking me shit like this?

I guess it comes from me jokingly referring to myself as ?lifes? punk. ? This is not the same as being into the clash and dressing up in needles and tattoos? Punk and about every other trend you can name avoided the part of Indiana I grew up in? meaning, I suck way too much to be in on any movement as it happens?