tommy ramone, and how can it be the ramones are gone from this world?

Back-to-back obituaries again. Obits are taking up a large percentage of wmtc real estate these days, yet another indication of how little I'm writing.

The passing of Thomas Erdelyi this week, better known as Tommy Ramone, brings an uncomfortable reminder of mortality for people my age and younger: the last surviving original Ramone.

Like a lot of people, I discovered the Ramones in a kind of backwards fashion, through the Clash and other great British punk and new wave bands. No matter how many times I've read and heard that these guys from Queens were a heavy influence on British punk, to me it always seemed the other way around.

The Ramones, perhaps more than any other band, embodied the true spirit of punk. So strange that they are gone.

Tommy Ramone, 1949-2014