Sibling rivalry

A brother and sister step out of the shadows
in I Slept With Joey Ramone: A Family Memoir
and Being Young: Scott, Neil and Me

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

When you’re a brother or sister to a superstar, as is the case with Mickey Leigh (I Slept with Joey Ramone: A Family Memoir) and Astrid Young (Being Young: Scott, Neil and Me), life ain’t always easy.

Both have tried to forge their own musical careers and both have experienced the double-edged sword of the door of opportunity quickly opening for them—and just as quickly slamming shut when they fail to follow in their siblings’ admittedly huge footsteps.

With the crushing weight of the Frank Sinatra Jr. complex heaped on both Young and Leigh’s shoulders, these two black sheep of the family try and keep their own music careers buffered against their older brothers. Occasionally they stoop to perform some of their brother’s music, or drop their family name in an effort to break into the biz, or in this case, sell books.

Leigh’s is easily the page-turner of the two. Written with Legs McNeil (Please Kill Me), Leigh fully understands that the brightest name on the marquee is the lead singer for the “bruthas from Queens.” Young’s, sadly, comes across as a series of teenage goth diary entries that should’ve been kept under lock and key. Her attempts to lure the reader with mundane tales of becoming an open mic hostess, wine connoisseur, Z-grade horror movie producer and struggling artist in a hair metal band are toothless at best. Despite possessing her father’s talent for the written word, she comes across as self-obsessed (a cross to bear when writing an autobiography, I suppose) and the book lacks any logistical flow within the chapters.

As expected, sour grapes spill onto the page in both books, but Young makes the grave mistake of trying to turn it into sparkling wine. Young’s biggest fault is that her book’s spine would be more at home peering out from the self-help section than the meaty and overcrowded one for biographies.

Leigh doesn’t pull any punches and like most families, his relationship with his brother involves quite a bit of mud slinging. There are nasty battles and legal threats for songwriting credits, and business deals between them go sour, but even in their stormiest times, Leigh still comes across as the adoring kid brother.

Joey Ramone’s dilapidating obsessive-compulsive disorder was finally made public in the 2003 documentary End of the Century, but Leigh delves much deeper into it. Taking the first person position, he describes how it adversely affected their broken home, growing up in Queens with an often overbearing and unsympathetic father. Equally heartbreaking are the tales of Joey being constantly ridiculed as a teenager—his six-foot-five gangly frame reduced him to a wallflower and compounded his life-long battle with ill health.

In what is probably the most exposing section of the book, Joey’s pre-Ramones era is finally brought to light to reveal psychiatric problems that eventually earned him a lengthy residence in Bellevue. After reading about Joey Ramone being put on suicide watch, bubblegum toe-tappers like “I Don’t Care” or “I Wanna Be Well” take on a new level.

While Leigh spares nothing, including his own hard knocks, Young’s rose-coloured lenses end up snatching her clarity. Admittedly, she’s upfront about the fact that she’s not writing her father or brother’s biography but telling her own story—but if she really doesn’t want to live in their looming shadow, she might want to think about leaving their names and pictures off of the front cover.

I SLEPT WITH JOEY RAMONE: A FAMILY MEMOIR
BY MICKEY LEIGH AND LEGS MCNEIL, SIMON
AND SCHUSTER, HC, 384PP., $34 BEING YOUNG:
SCOTT, NEIL AND ME BY ASTRID YOUNG,
INSOMNIAC PRESS, PB, 294PP., $19.95