When I was researching an article on the Ramones last fall for Mojo, several of Joey's old friends and colleagues referred to his health problems, but most of them sounded optimistic, as if the worst were behind him. In our telephone conversations, Joey himself displayed an infectious, boyish enthusiasm for rock 'n' roll and still seemed somewhat awestruck about how long and far the Ramones' influence had reached. If a life could indeed be saved by rock 'n' roll, then, by the sound of it, Joey should have been with us forever.

"The thing that I find really great these days," he said, "is that the band, it's like a continual hand-me-down, like a staple. As far as I'm concerned, there isn't anything thrilling going on [in pop music today], but there are a lot of bands that definitely have spirit, that are fun, that aren't full of themselves or take themselves too seriously, like Green Day, the Offspring, Rancid. "

Green Day, in fact, had been encoring with the Ramones' "Blitzkreig Bop," and Joey really dug that. In our final phone call, we talked about how U2 had just paid tribute to the group by covering "I Remember You" at a Dec. 5 Irving Plaza show, a few blocks from Joey's apartment. Maybe he could even have heard the echoes of all those people singing along if he'd leaned out his window. Joey reacted to all these homages in his funny, self-deprecating, just-this-side-of-deadpan way: "It's cool. The band's, like, timeless."

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I hope that was a comfort to Joey in the end: how much he mattered, how much he still matters, how improbable, amazing, and, ultimately, inspiring his career was -- and will continue to be. He just wanted to have something to do, and somehow he managed to change the world. It all seems so simple now.

"We wanted to be ourselves," he told me. "So that's what we did."

(Michael Hill, a journalist, was managing editor of the New York Rocker and also an A&R man for Warner Bros.)

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Anthony Buccella:

I met Joey Ramone in the bathroom of the Cat Club during a Butthole Surfers show. All I said was hello and he said "hey" in his thick Queens accent. That was all that was said and that was good enough for me.

(Anthony Buccella is a developer for the online version of the Wall Street Journal.)

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David Cassel:

After my senior year in high school I bought "Ramones." Since I was living in a teeny tiny town in the Midwest -- and I bought it at a mall, at a Sam Goody-type store -- it was possibly one of the hippest things I'd ever done. The Ramones were like an id for me in my over-controlled suburban world. The other icon was Wendy O. Williams, who shot herself a few years ago. I guess a lot of punks end up dying young -- but at least Joey kept fighting till the end.

I'd liked how the Ramones appropriated rock 'n' roll for their own punk purposes. When Joey and this gritty, stripped-down New York City band sang "Fun fun, Rockaway Beach," it was strangely subversive. For that reason my favorite Ramones album was always the Phil Spector-produced "End of the Century." (I always thought that would've been a great Y2K song.) Eventually they also did "Acid Eaters" -- with Joey covering songs from the '60s -- and it was amazing how well the covers worked.

I guess I'd say that plundering the roots of rock 'n' roll gave them a primal significance of their own. For me personally, they are synonymous with "punk," so it's hard for me to even imagine the landscape without Joey Ramone. When Napster came along, I downloaded some Ramones classics, and discovered someone had even created a techno-style "Ramones mega-mix."

Everyone's remarking on what a likable guy Joey was in real life. It made punk rebellion seem that much more accessible -- like an alternate community that would always be there. It's hard to really grasp that Joey Ramone isn't there anymore. I like what Mike Watt said on his mailing list:

"Sheena is a punk rocker. So am I. Miss you, Joey."

(David Cassel has written for Salon and Wired News and edits the AOL Watch mailing list.)

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I was sent the news about Joey Ramone's passing via e-mail from Thurston Moore and then by Mike Watt, and passed it on to my family and friends. My daughter Tiffany, who's 26 and a musician, wrote to me and her pals, sad about the news. Later in the morning I received back from my e-mail a link to an obit on Joey from Byrds founder Roger McGuinn. This all only begins to show the range through several generations of Joey's impact, both in his music and his passing.

I tried to explain to my son last night who Joey Ramone was and why I was so bummed. He's 11, this kid, and I had to speak to him in now terms and the best I could do was go, "Well, you know how you love Green Day? Well, there wouldn't have been Green Day without the Ramones."

Listening to the songs played on the news reports on TV and on the radio, I was left with this sad sense of longing -- I couldn't dare call it nostalgia: I wish rebellion and defiance came today in such a brilliant, fun, ironic form as it did in the Ramones. Breaking through these feelings, and the memories of hearing the Ramones for the first time on Rodney Bingenheimer's KROQ show, it was 2001 again and my son asked to listen to his "clean version" Eminem CD in the car as I drove him to school.

It only took a few verses of Detroit's own to feel, all the more profoundly, the loss as well as the contributions of Joey Ramone. Those three chords and dumb-smart ironic lyrics Joey and his band made legendary hit me so much more to the core than the endless twists of verbiage-by-the-pound coming out of the CD player at me. My son, I know, really wants me to like Eminem. And I don't wanna be an uncool mom, but ...

"Maybe I'm getting old," I thought. But as the day wore on, it became very clear to me that what was good enough for his sisters is good enough for him. It's time to get that boy a Ramones record.

(Allison Anders is the writer and director of the films "Gas Food Lodging," "Grace of My Heart" and "Sugar Town.")

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