God Save The Sex Pistols

The Sex Pistols reunited for a show in LA on Thursday. What fun! Johnny Rotten has been saying for years that it was they, and not the Ramones who invented Punk rock. Everyone knows the Ramones started it all. But to be fair, it was the Sex Pistols who put the punk in Punk rock!
A while back Mr. Rotten hosted a short lived TV show on VH1. It was hilarious! I saw it only once. He was at a resort or convention where there were lots of celebrities. His gimmick was to coax them into making fools of themselves.
The actor James Woods kindly obliged. He was obviously drunk, and didn't catch on that John was utterly humiliating him. He would make truly arrogant statements, and John would turn to the camera and give that funny cross eyed look of his. It was terribly funny stuff!
I always suspected that it was a furiously pissed off James Woods who got the show cancelled.
Neil Young wrote, "this is the ballad of Johnny Rotten, the king is dead but not forgotten."
Well he is neither dead nor forgotten.

CBGB gave me the Heebie-Jeebie's

Back in 1977 when I was working as a bartender at 315 Bowery, my mother used to call from Miami, FL. "Tommy are you still working at the Heebie Jeebie's" she would ask.

I just finished devouring Steven Lee Beeber's excellent new book about the Jewish influence on Punk rock. I loved it! http://www.jewpunk.com/
My only complaint would be that he didn't follow his thesis to it's inevitable conclusion, that Joey Ramone was the true Rock&Roll Messiah that Elvis so mistakenly thought he was.
A case could be made that without the Ramones and the rest of the NYC Punk scene, R&R would have died of boredom and old age. The Ramones came along, just in the nick of time, and resurrected R&R.
In his life time Joey never really ascended to the heights of R&R Royalty. He was never crowned like Elvis. Never a superstar in the way of Jagger or Jimmy Page. He wasn't the spoiled , pampered duke in the back of a limo ( no offence, Bowie). He didn't even move to Beverly Hills, where the elite of R&R live in royal splendor. In short, he was very much in the old testament tradition for a prophet. The Jewish Messiah, at least in the christian version, is someone you wouldn't ever suspect. And who would ever think of Joey Ramone as the King Of (Punk) Rock?
The only group of people I can think of who would hold Joey as "the King" would be dissatisfied, alienated , young teenage boy's,the very heart of R&R fandom!