dear troops thanx for all the mail about joey, hed called both debbie and me from the hospital about three weeks before he died, at that time we’d all thought he was getting out soon and he said that the doctors told him he couldnt leave yet… i think he knew by then and the brief conversation we had was the most emotional one id ever had with him, i told him id do anything i could for him and even though he said hed call me later on there was a certain finality that i couldnt ignore, for sure he was calling his friends for the last time… a lot of you might have had personal encounters with joey over the years so you have an idea of what he was like… even though we didnt hang out regularly id see him fairly often, we talked on the phone a lot and id go over to his apartment… any way he was the absolutely nicest guy ive ever encountered in this insane ego-ridden business, and thats not just a remark, joey was such a real person, maybe if hed been an aggressive maniac like so many others the ramones would have gotten their just rewards while he was still with us… so his passing for me is sad and bitter cause i know in my heart that the ramones were a million times better than so many bands that have had much greater success, bands that all drew ideas from the ramones… i can only say some cliches, we’ll miss him a lot… meanwhile im really caught up in the next record and behind on my site stuff… the music business still blows, the only thing ive seen/heard lately is this great video/song called ‘dig’ by some band called “mudvyne” i think its spelled, just fantastic, i saw it on mtv at 3 in the morning once THE OTHER GREAT THING IN THE MEDIA NOW IS INVADER ZIM!!!!!!!! ZIM IS GODDDDDDDDDDDDDD nickelodeon fri 9:00 e.s.t., check your listings, something this great could come and go without anyone knowing about it, zim like all other originals is not getting much attention, hes a cartoon by jhonen vasquez the guy who does ‘johnny the homicidal maniac” and others all for now chris