ADORKABLE GRRL Salad and Breadsticks orderer

Joined: 31 Dec 2005 Posts: 34 Location: San Francisco, CA
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Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 12:46 pm Post subject: #4 - Chelsea Horror Hotel by Dee Dee Ramone |
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Yes, that Dee Dee Ramone.
The bass player for the punk legends The Ramones apparently (among a prosperous career as rapper Dee Dee King in the late 80's) is also an author.
All I can say about this book is that it is definately the voice of Dee Dee Ramone (one of the world's most infamous junkies) speaking from beyond the grave...
Set in NYC in the late 1990's this book starts out as an amusing set of ancedotes about the weird and wacky characters whom Mr. Ramone encounters while living at one of rock n' roll's most notorious locals - The Chelsea Hotel. (That hotel being the same place where Sex Pistols bassist, Sid Vicious, allegedly killed his annoying girlfriend, Nancy Spungen & then committed suicide several months later...)
It is poorly written in terms of grammer and context - but, you can hardly expect more from Dee Dee Ramone, given that his brain must have been near mush when he wrote it from using heroin.
Then in a odd twist of circumstance - the book transitions from "day-in-the-life" vingettes into this weird, fucked-up narrative in which murder, demonic possession and the reanimation of some of punk rock's most notorious fiends (Johnny Thunders, Stiv Bators, Jerry Nolan & Sid Vicious) take the stage w/Dee Dee for one last performance as the entire hotel decends into hell & Satan's waiting arms... Satan, bearing a striking resemblence to Johnny Ramone, apparently being a junkie with a punkie fixation.
I would give this book perhaps 3 of 5 stars - mostly for nostelgia and the uncanny premonition of his own death which Dee Dee Ramone clearly writes about in this novel... I think when he was writing it he must have fancied himself the Jack Kerouack of the Punk scene... it's alright. More than likely you won't appreciate it unless you love late 70's punk & the amusement which has always been the Ramone's most colorful character...
I am looking forward to finding a copy of Dee Dee Ramone's other literary offering, a memoir: "Lobotomy: Surviving the Ramones."
But, until then I'm moving onto...
"Invisiable Circus" by Jennifer Egan _________________ HER ROYAL KATENESS, QUEEN OF ALL SHE SURVEYS |
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