"Lobotomy, Surviving The Ramones" by Dee Dee Ramone

Standing in a bar in Little Five Points in Atlanta GA. in 1999 talking to some smart-ass 21-year-old. He is talking about what is and is not Punk Rock, not realizing that to those of us who were there when Punk Rock was a thing, the whole point was for it to be impossible to define or put in a box. Out of this j*cka$$'s mouth come the words, "The Ramones weren't Punk Rock". Now he is standing in a bar full of 35-40-year-old Punks wearing 20-year-old leathers that are missing 1/2 the studs. Someone has to tell him that The Ramones, along with CBGB's, MADE the New York Punk scene. They WERE the New York Punk scene. The only band that MIGHT have been as punk is Social Distortion out of the L.A. Punk scene. Punk Rock would not have been Punk Rock without The Ramones. I mean, "What was Sheena?"

And then Dee Dee sobered up, like a lot of us did in the late eighties. And this book came from that experience.

This copy is the second edition and is a bit rough. It has had something, probably cheap beer, spilled on it and the pages are a tad wavy. But, this is the tale, told by the Bass player (No comments on bass players, thank you; Dee Dee also wrote the songs.) of THE RAMONES! The F*CKING RAMONES.

"Lobotomy" is a lurid and unlikely temperance tract from the underbelly of rock 'n' roll. Taking readers on a wild rollercoaster ride from his crazy childhood in Berlin and Munich to his lonely methadone-soaked stay at a cheap hotel in Earl's Court and newfound peace on the straight and narrow, Dee Dee Ramone catapults readers into the raw world of sex, addiction, and two-minute songs. It isn't pretty. With the velocity of a Ramones song, Lobotomy rockets from nights at CBGB's to the breakup of the Ramones' happy family with an unrelenting backbeat of hate and squalor: his girlfriend ODs; drug buddy Johnny Thunders steals his ode to heroin, "Chinese Rock"; Sid Vicious shoots up using toilet water; and a pistol-wielding Phil Spector holds the band hostage in Beverly Hills. Hey! Ho! Let's go!