The Fever of Saint Joey

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Originally uploaded by writer_mama.

My fever broke (or at least dropped) just in time for me to participate in the last leg of the Feast of Saint Joey yesterday evening--the first ever Joey Ramone pilgrimage on Joey Ramone's birthday.

I couldn't make it out to Forest Hills High School for the start of the whole ten-mile shebang. I had an appointment with my analyst at 11:00 (one very New York thing, kept me from doing another very New York thing), and I was pretty tired and weak from several days of a 100 plus fever-(-the day I went on the walking tour of Washington Square Park/Soho/Little Italy with Zoe's class, it was up to 102.something--enough to make me very miserable).

Also, yesterday there were several violent cloudburts. Lying on my analyst's couch trying to free associate, I heard an extravagant thunderclap--but it caused no extraordinary epiphany in my psyche. ( I did wonder if my girls were scared at school 1/2 mile away!--although sadly, I did not share that with my analyst.)

Later, while Avram fed the girlies, I caught up with the Hungry March Band and the Joey pilgrims at Tompkin's Square Park. They were remarkably energetic after a day of carrying instruments and that platformed statue. Loving the Ramones will do that to you, I suppose. After adjusting the garlands and the dove on the Joey mannequin and retuning their instruments, the Hungry March Band pushed off again into the streets and I followed.

I'm not happy with most of my Joey pilgrimage pics. They don't capture the energy of the crowds that were pulled from shops, bars, restaurants all grinning, snapping photos of their own. (Tourists on the upper deck of a giant bus leaned over jealously.) One grizzled drunk from Doc Holliday's called out "BEAT ON THE BRAT!!" The Hungry March Band swung into "Sheena is a Punk Rocker." The parade stopped across the street from Joey's last residence--a surpisingly modern highrise apartment on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 9th Street (see my Flickr photos). The we turned down 2nd, and stopped in front of the Continental, where Joey often hosted shows, and then the old site of Coney Island High on St. Mark's Place, where Joey also used to host, as well as solo. (We also went by Veselka, where Joey once stood behind me one morning, waiting for a table (much to my ecstatic delight!). Surveying the bustling scene, he'd said to his friend in his thick Queens' accent, "Gee, I'd hate to be in the restaurant business!")

By the time we got to CBGB the band was playing one of the Ramone's happiest songs "Rockaway Beach." That's when I decided to drop back home to eat. (The Bowery Poetry Club was renovating their cafe and couldn't serve me.) and help Avram with bedtime. I had every intention of running back to CBGB to see the tribute bands, but I found it hard to get out the door again. Why? Was it my fever exhaustion? Just general aging mom lameness? Does this ever happen to you?