We've pulled up at a Stuckey's somewhere along Texas' miles and miles of highways, and after everyone has chowed down their shakes and hot dogs, the Ramones break ranks to check the place out. Sitting at a table and chain-smoking along with Tommy (cigarettes are taboo in the Ramonesmobile, which has taken the lads to just about every nook and cranny of the continent on this, this first real cross country tour of the U.S.), I can tell just by the looks emanating from the faces of everyone in the joint, from employees to customers, that even though none of them have any idea who these leather-jacketed, t-shirted, jeaned and sneakered weirdos are, it's certainly the highlight of their day.

Joey seems to be drawing the majority of the incredulous stares, so I glance over to where he's rummaging through the souvenir rabbit furs. His "How did I ever get into this?" elongated body is drooped over the gift display, and from underneath his much too short jacket, his much too short t-shirt (turned inside out for maximum duty) is barely visible, leaving a good six inches of lower back out there greeting the furrowed eyebrows of the Chicano woman who's trying to coax her little baby into one more bite of her chili burger. Joey's jeans have pretty much disintegrated, especially around the knees, and comin' through the threads is a view of some rather nasty pink and red bruises covered somewhat by the kind of Band-Aids you used to show off to your pals after a heavy afternoon on the swings, slides and monkey bars— not only dirty but also a, little wet, so's you could ooze a little grime through the vents in the bandage area by pressing down slightly.

"We knew we were happening...we didn't know it realty takes time to make it. -Tommy Ramone"

Back in the van, everyone appears satisfied. Tommy has given thumbs up to the pecan milk shake (although he seemed more pleased with the armful of Hostess Sno-Balls he scored the night before at the 7-11); Dee Dee is already starting to fall asleep again, that innocent "Gee, Pop, a real baseball game!" smile covering his entire face; Johnny is investigating his Texas novelty post cards (a cowboy roughriding a giant rabbit, two guys preparing a six-foot grasshopper for the barbecue). I tell Joey that they must have a whale of a time at these pit stops, what with everybody gawking at them from the minute they show up until they're safely out of range. The boys coax Monty, the amiable road manager/ driver, to tell me what happened in San Antonio. "We're at this rest stop," says Monty, "and this middle aged woman is looking at all of them and then she comes over to me and says 'Are you the gentleman that takes care of these retarded boys? I think that's real nice.' Then she smiles and walks away."

Gabba Gabba Hey.

☆ ☆ ☆

I was supposed to file this Ramones report from either Chicago or Austin, but both times blizzards prevented me from hooking up with the band. While they played in Chicago, I was watching a foot and a half of the white stuff descending on the skin of the Big Mango, and after having re-scheduled everything for a month later, I show up at the airport only to find out that Dallas has been iced under. I'm promised that everything will be back to normal the next day and so, undaunted but definitely a bit edgy (like maybe the big guy upstairs just doesn't want me on this assignment), I oversleep and miss the first plane out, catch one late in the afternoon, and by the time I got to Texas, the band had already left for their gig in Fort Worth. I hopped in a cab and after the driver is finally able to get the correct directions from the company radio man (can anybody figure out why, in all cities where everyone drives, taxi drivers have no idea where they're going?), we pull into this former roller skating rink behind a bowling alley (like I said before— every nook and cranny).

The band is already playing onstage and there I am, suitcase in hand, dodging a few flying folding chairs and falling bodies, when this glass pitcher goes sailing by and crashes into the P.A. A kid stumbles past me, holding both hands over a bloodied left eye; luckily, it hit him just underneath the orb, and two minutes and some cold water later, he's back up front blitzkrieg bopping away, The crowd is divided just, about equally between loyalists stomping near the stage (they'd obviously studied the video tapes of that edition of Weekend to get their pogo steps in order) and the just plain curious milling around the back (which is where the pitcher came from). By the close of the as-always frantically paced Ramones set, though, everyone is hollerin' and ya-hooin' for more. Encores are especially fun at Ramones shows because you get at least three a shot. My favorite tonight is "Let's Dance," 'cause I love the way Dee Dee picks his background vocal words so carefully— only sings "DANCE" on the choruses (May as well point out that on "Rockaway Beach" he only sings "ROCK" and on "Glad To See You Go" nothing more than "GO GO GO GO." And that, folks, is the one and only minimalist reference you're gonna get in this Ramones story) .

"It's hard to feel separate...from punk... when a lot of these bands see us as heroes. —Tommy Ramone"

After the show, I join Joey at the Holiday Inn bar, where he, Joan Jett and Lita "She Wolf Of The New Wave" Ford of the Runaways (they're sharing the tour with the Ramones) are hoistin' a few. Two guys who worked security (and I use that word loosely) at the concert are hanging around, figuring, I guess, that they're gonna corral some Runaway meat, but the girls disappear (the secret word is that we'll meet 'em later in Lita's room) and they start talking to Joey. "Are you guys really brothers?" one of 'em asks, sippin' on a frozen marguerita (apparently the new tequila sunrise of the great South) that he thinks (yuk yuk) Joey is payin' for (great double take on his puss later when we shove the bill at him). "Naw," mumbles Joey. "We don't even know each other. We met in an elevator."

We go to Lita's room where, lord have mercy, her stage outfit (which I will not describe here because I do not wish to start babbling in print—at least not for a few more years) is hangin' from a hook. Joey suddenly gets up and runs out. A minute later he's back with a pile of records. "I picked these up yesterday," he grins, handing them to me. It's a pretty hot stash, including the Searchers' first album (on Pye) and a bubblegum collection which includes "Jelly Jungle" and "Rice Is Nice" by the Lemon Pipers, "Goody Goody Gumdrops" by the 1910 Fruitgum Co. and the Turtles' "She'd Rather Be With Me." "We've been hitting all these great record stores around the country," he says. "We all run in and start tearin' apart the bins. Whoever finds the best stuff wins and everyone else gets pissed off. It's great."

The first night ends with all of us watching some obscure Nazis in Polynesia flick with this woman in it who's the spittin' image of the Queen of Sheena herself, Irish McCullough. The girls move gossip headquarters into the bathroom and are a bit perturbed when I knock on the door to inquire as to the feasability of using the facilities for bodily functions. No sooner am I in and they out when Lita is shooting off a toy gun at the closed door. "Hey," she growls, "if you're gonna jerk off in there, you better wipe it off the seat." (A lot she knows about male masturbation techniques.) (Allow me to interject here that Joe Fernbacher was right in his rave review of the Runaways a few months ago—they have turned into one smoking outfit during the last year, play their cards right and they could be the next Kiss.)

☆ ☆ &

The next day we're up early and on our way to Houston. Topics discussed in the van during the six-hour ride range from horror pictures to record collecting to food to animals. Johnny, team statistician (keeps a little date book with him in which he registers where the band plays, how many people are there, how many t-shirts are sold...I wouldn't be surprised if he knew which years Bobby Richardson hit .300 and which ones he hit .250 for the Yankees), is in the process of capturing any and all available back issues of Famous Monsters Of Filmland ("I'm down to 0-30 by now"). He tells me that the band likes Texas well enough. "As soon as we got here, we tried to find the town where the chainsaw massacre supposedly took place, but we didn't have time to go there. " Dee Dee mentions a tamale joint that they'd seen from the highway. "It was this real broken down shack and they had this hand-written sign outside that said 'Over 2,000 returned.' "

Johnny pulls a piece of.paper out of his travelling case. "This British paper asked us to make up a list of our fifty favorite jsorigs and we started to but there were so many that we decided to make up a fifty worst list instead." The songs include, among others, "Nights In White Satin," "Dominique," "Hey Jude," "Blue Velvet," "Elusive Butterfly," "Oh Happy Day," "Casey Jones/ Truckin' " (counts as one selection), "Lemon Tree," and "Leaving On A Jet Plane."

"Hey, Dee Dee," says Johnny, "we're going to Australia and they've got about two hundred million sheep there!" "Really?" Someone says something about England and Johnny points out that, according to a recent study, it is believed that in ten years there will be' more foreigners in England than English people. Dee Dee looks up. "No wonder there's no future."

Arriving in Houston, we check into the Ramada Inn near the club where the band is playing this night. The restaurant has barely edible food—I brave the chili, since it seems to be my only chance to have any kind of Texas chili on this trip, Tommy orders a chicken fried steak, takes a few bites, then sends it back—"And," he states, "I will eat just about anything." The free salad bar includes this glop of pink stuff that we deduce is some kind of waldorf salad. No one wants to touch it, but we take a scoopful anyway, just so they'll at least have to stir it up later to make it look somewhat new. I ask Joey about high school, mentioning that I know a guy who graduated with him and remembers him only because in three years, he never heard him say one word. "I don't remember that much," he confesses. "Used to take about four Seconals every morning so I wouldn't have to think about being stuck there."

The soundcheck at the On The Border club in South Houston (big sign on the door which outlaws the following: t-shirts, sleeveless shirts, cut-offs, torn jeans, bare feet, work cloths (sic), knives, chains, MC jackets and dirty appearances. Guess they booked the wrong band) goes smoothly. Tommy meticulously taps his drums while the sound man gets all the mikes set up and in order; he is completely one-minded, making sure that everything sounds as loud and clear as possible. Dee Dee is, as always, nonchalanting it, relaxed, smiling, taking in everything and everybody around him as the givens in his day to day environment. Tommy straps on his guitar and suddenly he's transformed into a jaw clenched commando, his whole body growing more and more taut with each power chord blast. Joey steps onto the stage tentatively, looking nervous, shaking his arms and moving his neck up„ down and around, trying to' loosen up just a little. They run through a few songs and, after a brief huddle, give me a special treat—their cover of "Needles And Pins," which they've recorded but haven't found room for yet on an album. It is simply majestic * Johnny even throwing in that glorious little riff.

Later we all sit down in my room to talk about the band's career. "We started in the summer of '74," says Johnny. "We all lived on the same block and knew each other since we were kids. We'd talked about starting a group and one day, after Dee Dee and I had both lost our regular jobs, we bought some guitars and got together at my house. We tried to figure out what to do; took out some records that we liked and tried to play them, but we just couldn't—we weren't good enough. So we decided to try and write our own, real basic so we could play 'em. We came up with thihgs like 'I Don't Care' and 'I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You.' " At this time, band was a trio, with Joey on drums and Dee Dee doing the singing, but then it was decided that Joey take over the vocalist role. "Tommy was working at a rehearsal studio and we started practicing once a week," says Dee Dee. "I'd show up with four six-packs and we'd get drunk and not get anything, done. We tried a few friends on drums, but none of 'em could keep up so Tommy finally joined."

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 51

Their first gigs at CBGB's drew rather modestly ("I Think there were five people, there the first time we played," says Johnny), but slowly word of mouth spread and the band began to draw a regular follotong. "We'd put up these posters," says Dee Dee, "things like 'Meet The Ramones—New York's Phenomenal Pop Combo,' or They don't want to, but they will—held over again!' " "In the beginning," says Joey, "Hilly would say 'Nobody likes you guys, you're driving people out, but I'll have you back.' ", Within a year though, the band had a record contract. "We knew we were happening," says Tommy. "But we didn't know that it really takes time to make it."

I ask them about the straight media's coverage of punk, which by now has fractured history to the extent that many people think that all this stuff started with the Sex Pistols. "It's weird," says Johnny. "We were on this talk show in New York and this woman is saying that punk rock started in England and Joey says, 'Well, no, it started in New York,' and she says, 'Look, I have it right here on this piece of paper that it started in England and my information is never wrong!'"' Tommy shakes his head. "Whenever I read anything, or hear anything on or in the news, I go 'Wait a minute, if they know as much about this stuff as they do about punk rock...' "

I tell them how odd it is that in terms of fashion, the Ramones, as originators, look pretty out of step with the whole safety pin, short and choppy hair

brigade. "When we started," says Johnny, "we wanted some kind of definite anti-glitter look, 'cause that's what was going on then. It's amazing how they've changed punk rock back into glitter. I mean those clothing stores that sold glitter stuff are now selling the same stuff, but now it's punk fashions." "Anyway," says Tommy, "Julie Driscollactually started punk fashion." Do they feel separate from the scene at this point? "Well," says Tommy, "it's hard to feel separate when a lot of these bands see us as heroes. I think a lot of these newer bands don't really have a grasp on what We're doing. It's their interpretation of what we do combined with what's in their heads, and it comes out different."

I tell them that Rocket To Russia seems a bit less violent than their first two albums. "I don't think it's less violent," says Tommy, "just a little more mature." "There's more songs about going crazy on this album," says JohnPy. "Less murder and war, more getting disturbed." "Yeah," says Joey. "Ramones Go Mental."

☆ ☆ ☆

The show goes extremely well that night. The place holds about 700 people, but over 800 have sardined their way in. At this point in time, the Ramones are not only getting better, but faster, if you can believe that. Things are really cookin' by the time the band gets towards the end of their set, with "California Sun" and "I Don't Wanna Walk Around You" setting things up for "Pinhead," complete with ace visuals (Joey taking some: hair from the back of his head and holding it in a point and that incredible moment when he and Dee Dee point at each other and shout "D-U-M-B, everyone's accusing me!"), and the piece de resistance, the "Gabba Gabba Hey" picket sign that Joey holds high while the crowd yells along. After the set, the band is exhausted and Joey, who's had a rough day, what with trying to get moderately comfortable on the bus as his arms and legs continued to dangle from every conceivable angle imaginable throughout the ride, and fighting a running nose to boot, has only really smiled when the troops screamed along on "Pinhead." Kinda makes it all worthwhile, I say, as we share a cardboard box for a seat in the tiny office that is their dressing room. "Well," he says, "I always feel real good when they get into it."

I leave the next morning, although I almost decide to chuck everything and continue on to New Orleans with the group. Inside my suitcase is that Searchers album, which Joey has given me to hold onto until the band finally gets off the road. He took down my phone number and shoved it into a little zippered pocket along the left arm of his jacket. "Only place I can put things and not lose 'em."

Christ, I like this band.