Talking Headiness

Neon Memes • As he lay dying from lymphoma, Joey Ramone―the gloriously gangly frontman of punk icons the Ramones―fixated harmlessly but still incongruously on CNBC business reporter Maria Bartiromo. That fixation, of course, eventually yielded "Maria Bartiromo," the fourth track on his Don't Worry About Me, released the year after he died, in 2002. With sympathy, I perforce reflect on Joey and the "Econo Babe" whenever I breakfast at the Clayton Stratton's Café (190 Carondelet Plaza, Ste. 176, 314.726.0900). At that hour, the plasma screen there customarily airs CNN's American Morning, you see, and that program's Kiran Chetry bloody bewitches me. Moreover, because Stratton's airs American Morning on "mute" with closed captioning unreadable from my usual seat, Chetry has smitten me solely with her looks, with her marvelous mélange of Dutch, German, Nepalese and Ukrainian heritages. For all I know, she may have the I.Q. of a tumblebug, with a personality to match. Whenever Chetry arches those gloriously feline brows, though, I go gaga―and somewhere in my mind, poor, doomed Joey's singing, "I watch you on the TV every single day / Those eyes make everything okay..." ―Bryan A. Hollerbach, Managing Editor