my sister really turned me onto the ramones.

now, if you knew my sister, the aimee mann/sheryl crow/tracy chapman loving lady that she is, you may think i was making up tales.

but no, it's true.

i mean, i think i had probably introduced her to the ramones. but she turned me onto the ramones.

during her somewhat-punk days of the nose ring and the green hair, where she was the Uno that all the boys adored (oh the drama! oh the drunken fistfights at parties that my sister and i didn't even attend over who had the bigger crush on her! how she drove her taco bell patrons wild! sweet suburban punk rock love!), when we would hang out in the backyard after dark and smoke cigarettes on the side of the house, or go to friend's houses to drink beer and talk shit, those were the days when she got me into the ramones.

oh man, the good old suburban punk rock days. girls doing gymnastics in the street in their panties (i will not name names). piercing anywhere we could, including lips, with a piercing gun--the horror! shaving parties, dying parties, 6 people piled into a bed.

hearing the velvet undergound for the first time. sonic youth. roxy music too.

listening to crass, x, raooul, pansy division, black flag, dead kennedys, bratmobile, sparker, babyland, unwound, getting all the politics wrong.

siouxsie, the smiths, joy division.

the first mix tapes.

seeing the vandals and the dead milkmen and almost getting killed at a violent femmes concert because it was held in the kind of town where there's nothing to do except for fight drink and fuck and all the kids, skins, hardcore kids, everyone, went to the same shows.

having hair every color, shaving the sides and the back, and then eventually all of it off. perfectly designed eye make up, blood red lips. boots that i wore everyday during those years until i handed them down to my brother who split the soles within 6 months of going to shows when he picked up the punk rock crown.

the nervousness, insecurity, never being as cool as the coolest kids, making up for it in sarcastic remarks and telling yourself over and over you don't care. walking down the halls before nirvana hit and having the worst things said to me by the same people who were wearing docs and flannels a year later.

never really being that cool, just wanting to be part of the joke rather than the butt of the joke.

ah good good times. being best friends with my sister, going to tons of shows, hanging out nearly every night.

and the damned ramones.