Touchstone, 416 pages, hardcover, $26.00

Honestly, it never crossed my mind what the inner workings of the Ramones were. Growing up in the suburbs and listening to punk meant loving them; it didn’t mean caring at all what was going on in their lives. It’s probably better that it wasn’t common knowledge that they were so incredibly dysfunctional as people, as it would have only been cannon fodder to prove how functional we could be.

Joey Ramone (née Jeffry Hyman) wrote some entertaining songs and helped created a whole new genre of music. He also had a lot of ladies in the process, did a lot of drugs, had some serious OCD, was abusive and was abused, and all around seemed like a pretty unhappy guy. And thanks to his brother (née Mitchell Hyman, now Mickey Leigh), and the unfortunately named Legs McNeil (of Punk magazine semi-fame), we get to hear the whole story, in a very vague manner.

The genius of this book is that it tells the story of someone who might have never wanted his story shared, someone who made a really big impact on music as we know it (especially as fans of punk music know it). The unfortunate part is that it is very opinionated and not particularly detailed. Constant mentions of excessive drug use, verbal and physical abuse of partners and of band mates, wild parties, and exciting travel: they’re all done in dull, speedy, detail-less ways. It’s almost as if the author were on too many drugs to remember the whole story…which he admittedly was, at times.

That being said, just to hear some of the stories of where Ramones songs came from is intriguing. Who would have thought that Joey Ramone came up with “The KKK Took My Baby Away” because he was planning on traveling to Florida to visit relatives with his girlfriend (who happened to be black) and he made a bad joke about how they’d steal her away from him?

An interesting and engaging read regardless of the quality of the writing.