Last week, I celebrated the 57th birthday of one of my boyhood idols, Jonathan Richman. Today is another notable birthday: Joey Ramone, born May 19th, 1951, also would have turned 57 this year, had he not passed away in 2001. Joey was a unique figure in the Pantheon of rock greats: 6’7” tall, rail thin, his face hidden behind dark glasses and a mop of hair; he was geeky, gawky, gifted. As a geeky, gawky high school student back in the late 70s and early 80s, it was easy for me to identify with Joey. If he could be a rock star, I could be anything I wanted to be. And that, after all, was central to the punk ethos Joey and the rest of the Ramones embodied. I saw the Ramones countless times during that period; memorized their first few albums; watched them grab at—and miss—the brass ring of commercial success with Rock ‘n’ Roll High School and the Phil Spector-produced End of the Century; and then gradually lost track of them over the intervening decades, until 2001, when, just months before he would have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Joey succumbed to lymphoma. By the time Joey died, he had secured his place not just in Cleveland, but in the hearts of a new generation of neo-punks like Green Day and the Donnas, who embraced the raw, unpretentious energy of the early Ramones. He also became something of an elder statesman of the New York music scene, hosting shows at various New York venues (at one such show, Jonathan Richman performed Roadrunner at Joey’s request, quite possibly his only public peformance of the song since the early 70s). That tradition continues tonight, with the annual Joey Ramone Birthday Bash at Irving Plaza. I won’t be there, but I’ll be thinking of Joey. Gabba gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us.

The first time I saw Jonathan Richman perform, nigh on 30 years ago, he was in his “second childhood” phase, and got down on all fours to sing “I’m a Little Dinosaur.” He did children’s matinees. He refused to do any material from his seminal first album, no matter how much people begged (and they did, with Freebird-like consistency). For me, it was love at first sight. At the height of the punk movement, when cynicism and nihilism were in vogue, here was a performer, a founding light of that movement (the Sex Pistols even covered him!), who reveled in hope, optimism and childlike innocence. Later, he dropped the overt references to childhood, but never lost that sense of innocence and wonder. (Even in the midst of his divorce, when he vented through bitter songs like “True Love Is Not Nice,” he still managed to pen paeans to the little things like “The Lonely Little Thrift Store”.) Today, Jonathan turns 57. And he’s still touring, recording—and glorying in the little things. If you’re not familiar with him, check him out. Now is the time. Here in the morning of your life.

One spring day during my junior year of high school, a friend came up to me and said, “Did you hear? Ian Curtis killed himself.” Dumbfounded, I replied, “Who?” At the time, my musical tastes were evolving, and this friend, who was always a step ahead of me, briefed me about Joy Division’s history, and lamented that he wouldn’t get to see them at Hurrah as he had planned (if memory serves correctly, he kept his tickets to the canceled show as a memento mori, rather than turning them in for a refund). Over the next few months, I would come to fully embrace Joy Division’s small, powerful ouevre, along with that of New Order, which rose almost too rapidly from the band’s ashes.

I’ve been thinking about those days a lot lately, as the Joy Division revival launches into high gear. In the past three days alone, The New York Times has had three articles about the group, culminating in today’s glowing review of the biopic “Control,” which is, of course, the driving force behind the newfound interest in Joy Division. And, not to let an opportunity pass it by, Apple has released its “iTunes Originals” New Order album, which includes mostly interview clips, along with versions of “Transmission” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”

The most striking thing about the New Order versions of these songs is how ordinary they sound. When Ian Curtis sang, “Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio,” each “dance” was a sharply punctuated, like a hammer hitting a nail. Curtis wasn’t singing about dancing; he was singing about using music as a blunt instrument to blot out painful memories. When Bernard Sumner sings the same lyrics, he’s, well, singing about dancing. That’s not exactly surprising. New Order, has, after all, always been a dance band, focused more on finding the perfect beat than a meaningful turn of phrase. Even the group’s best song, the Curtis tribute “The Perfect Kiss,” features such inane, wince-worth lyrics as “I have always thought about/staying here or going out.” That doesn’t mean I don’t like New Order. The group’s early singles sound as fresh to me today as they did over 25 years ago, and I certainly listen to “Temptation” more often than, say, “Komakino.” But when I want more substance, I’ll return to Joy Division, as I suspect many fans, old and new, will do in the coming weeks.

I didn’t get to see the 40th anniversary concert staging of “Hair” this weekend. From the early reviews I’ve read so far, it sounds like it was a great production, and the seven-hour wait for tickets doesn’t seem excessive by Delacorte standards. Still, I’m not that depressed about missing the show. After all, I saw the original—and was kinda, sorta, almost in the movie. The original production of Hair was the first Broadway show I ever saw, back in 1969 or 1970 (I know I didn’t see it in ‘67 or ‘68, because I distinctly remember discussing the lyrics to “Initials” with my parents, and being told that “RMN” stood for Richard M. Nixon). And the cast recording was one of the first records I owned. I listened to it over and over, memorizing the lyrics—or what I thought were the lyrics. Childhood mondegreens still pop up, unbidden, whenever I listen to that album, my personal favorite being my interpretation of the line “I got headaches and toothaches and bad times too, like you” in “I Got Life,” as “bad times to like you.” Misheard or not, the music of Hair was an important part of the backdrop to my early years, and many of the show’s songs trigger Proust-like recollections of childhood (I still get a chill every time I hear “The Flesh Failures”—and not just because the cast stripped nude at the end of the song).

While I have nothing but fond memories of the original Broadway production, I can’t say the same about Milos Forman’s 1979 movie version. For one thing, I’m not in it. Back when the film was being shot, there was an open call for extras to come to Central Park and portray hippies. I showed up, in my long hair, bell bottoms and gauzy shirt, and hung around hoping to be immortalized. Alas, my scenes were relegated to the proverbial cutting room floor (or worse; I don’t even know if the camera was ever pointed in my direction). But it’s not just the poor casting decisions that made the movie a disappointment. If the play was an exuberant, sloppy, in-your-face, real-time celebration of the 60s, the movie was more like, as London’s Time Out said, “a National Lampoon parody of some ghastly Swinging Sixties compendium.” Variety also got it right, commenting that “the spirit and elan that captivated the Vietnam protest era are long gone, and what Forman tries to make up with splash and verve fails to evoke potent nostalgia.” The movie, in its freeform-yet-predictable plot-line, with its too-cute set pieces, and with its heavy-handed moralizing, struck all the wrong notes (fortunately Forman, who had soared with “Cuckoo’s Nest” before shooting “Hair,” redeemed himself to theater lovers a few years later, with “Amadaeus”). Perhaps the best thing about the Delcorte production is that it will expose a new generation to the raw energy and passion of the original play. With luck, it will get picked up for a full Broadway treatment. Its message would certainly resonate today, and I for one would gladly pay good money to hear “Initials” sung with “GWB” in the lyrics.

On a recent trip to Canada, I made sure to stay in a hotel with free in-room WiFi. This meant that, in addition to the obvious things like being able to check email and news from my room, I could also save on the usual extortionate hotel long distance charges by using Skype, and listen to music via Rhapsody. The former worked like a charm. Unfortunately, when I tried logging in to my Rhapsody Unlimited account, I came up against one of the service’s limits: No access outside of the U.S. After some initial frustration, I decided to try the favored solution of government spooks and Chinese dissidents: Anonymizer. After downloading the latest version and signing up for a free seven-day trial, I rebooted, and activated anonymous surfing. I checked my IP address, and sure enough, the hotel’s Canadian address had been replaced with an American one supplied by Anonmyizer. I logged back into Rhapsody, and was streaming my library within minutes. Although Anonymizer slowed down my access slightly, the lag was minimal, and didn’t affect my ability to stream from Rhapsody. Overall, it was a very satisfying experience, and I’d be happy to pay Anonymizer’s annual fee just to avoid similar hassles in the future (though of course, it would be even better if Rhapsody Unlimited really lived up to its name).

I’ve bought a handful of iPods over the years, including a shuffle (which I lost) a nano and a mini (my focus, obviously, has been on mobility). But I’ve never had a lot of interest in a full-size iPod. Until now. The new touch-screen iPod finally takes the device and makes it good for more than just listening to music and going blind trying to watch movies on an infinitesimal screen. With its big screen, WiFi, iTunes and functional browser, the touchscreen iPod is actually something useful, and a credible competitor to the Nokia 800, a device I’ve been coveting ever since I picked up a 770 on the cheap a few months ago. Now, I’m glad I waited. Though the touch may not have the N800’s open-source underpinnings. expandable memory or built-in Skype support, it’s got almost everything else, including a very competitive price. When the iPhone was released, I recall thinking that, if Apple came out with a device that did everything the iPhone did, except the phone part, and priced it at about $300, I’d be first in line for it. Now Apple’s gone and done it, and I’m ready to order. Nokia, watch your back! (Note: As with all other posts on this blog, the opinions expressed herein are strictly my own and are based solely on my own subjective perspective.)

I can only assume that someone at New York Press thinks that the only way to truly be punk is by bringing down punk idols. How else to explain the paper’s Hilly Kristal obituary, headlined “Club Killer Dies.” The gist of the short item is that Kristal—who ran CB’s for over 30 years— ”screwed up and let the club go under,” and that his death was therefore fitting in an O. Henry sort of way. This, you may recall, is the same paper that ran a “How should Tommy Ramone die?” contest a few years back. Such puerile attempts at humor might be funny to a handful of sixth graders, but for those of us who can remember both Hilly and the Ramones when they were in their gabba gabba heyday, it’s hard to find anything to laugh about.