STROLL INTO YOUR favorite record store, make a clever comment ...

The film's barely a day into its limited release when the usual Ramones hangers-on started bitching about how the title?lifted from "Chinese Rocks"?is disrespectful. There's also plenty of whining about how the film doesn't concentrate enough on the Ramones. As usual, this translates into how the film doesn't concentrate enough on the Ramones' professional groupies.

Honestly, the whole brouhaha almost distracted everybody from oohing and aahing over Arturo Vega's new tattoo.

"I didn't make the film for those people," responds the well-adjusted Kowalski, "so who cares? The film speaks for itself. When you get into that world of rock 'n' roll, and you have your rock 'n' roll careerists with their rock 'n' roll reality, there's a path you're expected to follow. If it doesn't fit into the standard rockumentary, then nobody gets it. There's other ways of telling stories."

Kowalski knows what he's talking about, too. "I have a whole other career besides junkie rock stars," he notes, having just returned from shooting footage in Afghanistan. He's more than the Curator of Needle Park, and Kowalski's smart to distance himself from that?even to not cashing in on his past by calling the new film Story of a Junkie II.

"I couldn't do that," he laughs. "Actually, I like the Ramones a lot better now than when they were on the scene. I was just getting commentary for my Johnny Thunders movie. It was expensive, filming in 35mm with extra video cameras running. I had everything booked, but, that day, Dee Dee got uptight about doing it. He finally asked me to go with him to a shrink on 14th St., who prescribed him some pills. He never took them. He just felt better having the pills."

This would be a good time to note that this column's moratorium on the Ramones lasted an entire four months. That, of course, sets the all-time record for NYC hackery. And I could hold out longer if it didn't seem pathetic to get excited about Billy Idol or Vampires vs. Werewolves during the anniversary of 9/11. I'm planning to take Kowalski's word on his documentary, too, since nobody should pay $9 for a 63-minute production coming out on DVD on October 21?in cool packaging, too.

But it's appropriate to goof on a dead rock star on a day spent mourning good Americans who died amongst commercial realty. Especially when watching Kowalski's documentary with Jesse Hartman?d/b/a Laptop?whose recent Don't Try This at Home is a sharp synthpop exploration of why the glamorous life isn't worth the trouble. The album got raves in Rolling Stone and Esquire, but his big payoff so far seems to be the Dandy Warhols blatantly ripping him off on their new album.

Hartman's rock career is best summed up by how his childhood piano teacher is also this year's hottest pedophile: "Yeah, Arthur Friedman taught me how to play my first rock song. 'Riders on the Storm'?and isn't that, like, already a scary song?"

Besides the hilarity of a dead junkie flipping off the NYPD on 9/11, Dee Dee includes an equally scary glimpse of the rock star's 1992 apartment. Robert Johnson lived better. "Heroin isn't that expensive," muses Hartman, "but maybe I'd be happy in a hovel if people kept telling me what a genius I am. Richard Hell was still living in a sixth-floor walkup when I first met him. He asked me if I wanted coffee, and he poured coffee grounds over a filter over a cup. That was his coffeemaker. And I still fell for the rock star thing."

It's a powerful lure, and Hartman's the rare honest man who confronts the ugly truth. "I'm thinking about taking my own advice," he concedes, even as he heads home to start booking a UK tour with his gorgeous all-femme band. ("We've been booked for a wedding, so I'm planning the tour around that. Typical, huh?") I walk over to watch about 15 desperate rock acts performing at a 9/11 fundraiser over at CBGB. Man, what a tragedy.

[jrt@nypress.com](mailto:jrt@nypress.com)