Nik's Unheralded Albums #7: Joey Ramone, "Don't Worry About Me"

Death changes how you listen to an artist. You can't help it. Try putting on Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" this week and not thinking about her lonesome end. It's pretty much impossible. Of course, eventually the shock of death fades a bit and it's just another song by the Doors. There's a ton of famed posthumous albums, from Nirvana's "MTV Unplugged" to Roy Orbison's "Mystery Girl" to George Harrison's "Brainwashed."

Some after-death albums are better than others, some are obvious record-company attempts to catch in on leftover bits and bobs (hello, Tupac Shakur!). Occasionally, you get one that's a defining final statement by an artist who knows the end is near. Warren Zevon's "The Wind," the latter albums of Johnny Cash, and one of my favorites, Joey Ramone's "Don't Worry About Me."

Is it morbid? Hipster nostalgia? Probably a bit of all of the above. But 10 years after his death, I still find myself listening to and enjoying a Ramones fan curiosity -- the only solo album by lead singer Joey Ramone, released a year after his death from cancer in 2001.

"Don't Worry About Me" doesn't break the Ramones mold. Short, sharp and punchy, it's got that distinctive Ramones sound but shot through with a slightly more introspective air, and underneath the punk/pop you realize this is a loose concept album about Joey's life, and his battle with lymphoma.

"Don't Worry About Me" is a 34-minute catharsis for Joey, recording the album from his sickbed. Look at the song titles -- "Stop Thinking About It," "Like a Drug I Never Did Before," the marvelous "I Got Knocked Down (But I'll Get Up)". "I Got Knocked Down" is a song for anyone dealing with the horror of their body or a loved one's body failing -- "Sitting in a hospital bed / I want my life," Joey sings. There's nothing too deep or metaphorical about this -- it's Joey's very real frustration, delivered with the same blunt passion the Ramones would bring to lines like "Now I wanna sniff some glue." But "Don't Worry About Me" isn't a downer of an album. With typically goofy Ramones songs like "Mr. Punchy" or a cover of the Stooges' "1969," it's a defiant, resilient album. He doesn't ask you to feel sorry for him -- hell, the final song is the title track, "Don't Worry About Me."

Off-center covers of Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" are cliche by now, but man, I still love Joey's take on it, which opens the album with an ecstatic blast, a punch in the face of death and fate. Knowing the singer is gone now, too young, lends it an extra poignancy -- is that manipulative, I suppose? But something being manipulative doesn't mean it isn't also based on truth. As last blasts raging at the darkness go, "Don't Worry About Me" is one of my favorites. Play it at my funeral.

Holiest of holies

With 3 days to go in 2009, I proclaim this the year's best YouTube video compilation. And the decade's, for that matter.

The Beatles... in the year 3000!

Awesome.



Via Neatorama.

And a happy Thanksgiving to you Yanks

This is all over the Internet, true, but it's so incredibly awesome that it must be shared with all sentient lifeforms. Cheers!

Accidents, plague and paranoia!

It must be the winter blues.... Random notes:

...So anyway last weekend I got into my first New Zealand car accident, thanks to a teenager driving his mum's minivan who smashed into me from behind while I was slowed on the highway waiting for a car to turn. Fortunately nobody was hurt, which was extremely good as my 5-year-old nephew was in the car, but the Subaru is a little less well for the wear. Still, it's driveable until we get it repaired. We've been hoping to get another year or so out of the rather battered 13-year-old car we bought right after we arrived as a stopgap measure, but we'll see how it goes once it's subjected to a few weeks of repairs once we go through the insurance process. Fun fact: Last time I was involved in any kind of car accident was about 10 years ago when... I was rear-ended by a teenager up at Lake Tahoe. Deja vu.

• I haven't succumbed to swine flu paranoia just yet, but let's just say increasing cases in Australia and Auckland are starting to make me a bit more nervous. Particularly as the day care centre mentioned here is the same chain Peter was going to not too many months ago... At least I remind myself they do have treatments for this stuff if the worst comes...

• Captain Crunchberries aren't a fruit? Let's sue!

• Score one for English speak! Here's your random quote of the day:
"We have learned ... that vowels are extremely important to New Zealanders."

• Courtesy of the inimitable Topless Robot, via '70s Bollywood comes the best fight scene ever for your weekend viewing pleasure -- be sure to watch to the end:

I would totally have watched this show

...Sorry, it's been low content mode this week, been busy and so forth. Posts on vampires, Harlan Ellison and the '80s are on the way eventually. By way of apology here's an amusing bit of YouTubery I ran across:



This would have been the finest artistic expression of the 1980s, I'm certain....

Five years of blogging and not one post that was actually about spatulas

Until now.

From wikipedia:
A turner (in British English), or fish slice, is a kitchen utensil with a long handle and a broad flat edge, used for lifting fried foods. Though the word spatula is used in British English, it refers solely to a mixing and spreading implement. Often the plate scraper is referred to as a spatula. In some parts of Scotland (e.g. Glasgow or Victoria Halls) the spatula is also known as a tosser which refers to the tossing of omelettes or pancakes.

The word spatula, known in English since 1525, is a diminutive form of the Latin term spatha, which means a broad sword (as in spatharius) or a flat piece of wood and is also the origin of the words spade (digging tool) and spathe.

Lightning round!
Want to see the biggest spatula in the world? Glad you asked.

Want to chill out with some beats and think about spatulas? Spatula City Records is your place to go. Or trance-rock out with Mystical Spatula. Alternatively, get heavy with the metal band Spatula (who really should get an umlaut and be called Spätüla).

Spatulas are not trowels.

Would you like a virtual spatula? Share with someone you love.

If you're an ichthyologist, perhaps atractosteus spatula is more your speed.

A cinemaniac? Meet Spatula Boy. Or another entirely different Spatula Boy.

...Hungry for more blogs that have spatula in the title for no apparent reason? My soul brother at Giant Spatula. Which is a far better name really. Or Little Spatula. Learn about the Golden Spatula Institute. By god, Or Lick The Spatula.

Or just abandon all hope with the Spatula Of Death.


And the final word, from Weird Al:


Happy fifth blog-iversary to me!

Congratulations, Mr. President

President Barack Obama.

Oh yeah. That's what I'm talking about. It's very nice to feel excited rather than vaguely depressed at an inauguration. I remember how good it felt in 1992, before Bill Clinton's seamier side tainted his presidency, to feel that "your team" won one. And it's fine to feel some optimism after an awful lot of bad news days.

And what a fine speech by Obama today (but was there any doubt really?). Brief but powerful and finely carved as a statue from granite. I get a sense when he speaks that he means what he says, that they aren't just words on paper, and of course knowing that he's a decent author himself I highly imagine much of the memorable turns of phrase -- "our patchwork heritage," "the bitter swill of civil war and segregation," "the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break," -- come directly from Obama's pen. The man can give a speech.

But still...

Still... it might be totally, utterly immature of me, but somewhere in the 13-year-old boy in my head, I have to admit, wouldn't it have been really kind of cool if he'd started off the speech like this:



Um.

I'm so, so sorry. But I've been waiting to use that joke for a year now. Sorry.

I could watch this all day long.

Kind of hypnotic, ain't it?

...You know, say what you will about Bush (and I will), but the man does have good reflexes.