saved by the ramones

it happens sometimes. i get home from work and i'm in a rut. i'm bumming hard. i can't even quite put my finger on what exactly is causing said internal crisis, but it's bringing me way down. that happened tonight. i squandered around my apartment, wrote shitty things on pieces of paper i'd later throw out and finally i went to my computer and pressed play. it was the ramones. it was exactly what i needed.

 the ramones are almost always a fail safe, go to maneuver to pick me back up. before i knew it, i was bopping around my apartment like a maniac, singing and raising my fists in the air. the ramones had delivered me one more time to my happy place. they're clutch like that.

i remember when i first really got into the ramones. it was around the same time in high school when two of my best friends were getting really into kiss (this was the 90's, not the 70's... guess it's kinda odd we all got on a retro kick of some sort around the same time) and i just couldn't get down with kiss. this was around the time kiss started touring again and they'd go see them and i'd never get in on that cuz i just wasn't interested.

lucky for me, my mom had recently received one of those, '12 cd's for $1,' deals that you'd get through the mail with columbia house back in the day. one of the cd's she bought was the ramones, 'loco live' (if you read my blog on a regular basis, you'll know that my mom has some awesome musical taste, especially when it comes to rock and roll). i "borrowed" that cd (borrowed is such a loose term. i'm 34 and live on my own and am certain that cd's in a stack somewhere around here. sorry mom) and listened to it incessantly. i was hooked from the first, "1,2,3,4." it was simple, it was joyous, it was loud, and it was something to raise a fist in the air and sing along to.

i consider the ramones to be one of the more important rock and roll bands of all time. sometimes we forget that this is all supposed to be fun... all of it. rock and roll, life, existence. sometimes we need to stop with the over thinking and the trying too hard. leave that for pink floyd (disclaimer: i love [roger waters era] pink floyd, there's a time and place for everything). keep it loud, simple, and fun... that'll usually get me out of any funk.