What I love most about reading rock stars autobiographies is that they are written by people who are not professional writers, but punks. These books read like a conversation, scattered, often off on side-story tangents. Rock star autobiographies (especially if the rock star had no ghostwriter) are littered with improper language and he-said-she-said-gossip about widely know events that made rock history. Johnny Ramone’s Commando is no different. It’s his story in his own blunt, Republican-punk tongue (in the back of the book Johnny has penned Top Ten lists of baseball players, guitarists and of course, Republican presidents). He’s pro-police, pro-Capitalism, pro-war (some of them). He’s the ultimate good American, but he’s also a Ramone.
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The thing about being a front person is that you are going to get labeled. I don’t know what it’s like to be a man playing music, because I’m not a man playing music, but I do know that when you are a woman on stage, the good girl/bad girl dichotomy is a common one. When you get labeled, it’s solely based on your stage persona. So, if you stand on stage in lace, strumming your Fender Telecaster while you belt beautiful lyrics, you are going to get called a “good girl.” If you scream, rip at your hair, and roll around on the floor like a child, you get the opposite. Pop is good. “Punk” is bad. But the oppositions happen within genres too. Jessica Simpson defended her virginity, while Christina Aguilera proudly proclaimed herself as a vixen. You know the story. It’s always been the way. It’s annoying, but the opposition obsession isn’t going anywhere.
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