THE RAMONES PUMP IRON

Joey Ramone is not my brother. For six years, people have been approaching me at Ramones gigs, giving my uncontrollable wavy hair, pale skin and near-sighted squint the once-over, comparing me to the similarly-hued and peering gangly lead singer. Once or twice I mistakenly wore little round granny glasses to a Ramones show and was stared at by hundreds of their fans. True, both Joey and I were raised in the boroughs of New York City, are approximately the same age and revere a 1960’s disc jockey called Murray the “K,” but Joey was a high school rebel who moved to the grotty Lower East Side as soon as he could slip away, while I sucked up the academics and relocated to his former middle-class Queens neighborhood.