As I watched this documentary with my friend, Sophie, an avid Ramones fan and all-around music connoisseur, the answer to the eponymous question was promptly answered. Sophie leaned over and remarked, "I don't think Dee Dee is home."

Dee Dee Ramone (né Douglas Colvin) the bassist of the legendary punk band the Ramones, passed away last June of a heroin overdose, is chronicled in Lech Kowalski's 2003 documentary. The content of the film is severely corrupted by the shoddy technical aspects. Poor sound quality, bad lighting and lack of different camera angles combine to form a frail shell of the film, leaving the stories - the faintly beating heart of this body of work to succumb to the atrocities of heroin use -- to serve as the only living thing in the film.

Dee Dee is a fascinating creature to watch. Unlike today's easily accessible yet nauseating "punks," (i.e. Good Charlotte, reason #1027 that America is an evil, evil country that continues to poison the rest of the world every way it possibly can) Dee Dee does not feign the "I'll make myself look really bad which will make people think I'm hardcore even though my name is Benji" attitude. Nor does ostentatious unappealing cockiness (which Dee Dee would actually deserve to have) exist. And his emaciated body often visible through his ripped clothes would certainly not make VH1's list of "Hot Rock Bodies."

Musically he's a genius, but you wouldn't know that from hearing him speak. Fragmented sentences and disjointed ideas often make the film hard to watch. You know he's got a million amazing stories to tell, but somewhere in transition from thought to expression the train goes slightly off the track and only a fraction of the tale remains. From the Ramones' competition with the Sex Pistols to the shockingly bizarre confession that after years of abusing heroin, "going to the methadone clinic lead to our downfall," you just know this guy has a hell of a story to tell.

Dee Dee's style of storytelling parallels the Ramones' lyrics: straightforward and to the point. Occasional amusing anecdotes often become joyless as most of the humor and absurdity stems from his pain and alienation.

Drugs commanded Dee Dee's life; the only friends he was close with he bonded with through dope. Attempts to kick his drug habit became futile as his girlfriend and pretty much everyone in his social circle were hooked. Perhaps when you're an integral part of the A-List punk scene, good friends with Debbie Harry and have every drug at the tip of your fingertips there is not much more you could ask for. There's nowhere to go but down. And down he went.

At one point he poignantly states that his guitar was his only friend. Yet since perhaps music is his most effective way of communicating it becomes obvious why the film feels so empty. There certainly isn't enough music in the film, unless you count the omnipresent "Chinese Rocks," Dee Dee's songwriting claim to fame. We're exposed to different versions of the song as well as Dee Dee's revealing story behind the lyrics. And yes, his inspiration for the song was based on his relationship - not with a woman mind you, but dope. His impressive guitar work adds another layer to this complex yet dilapidated musician, as he was most recognized for being the bass player, usually the least appreciated musician in a rock band.

His tattoos serve as his journal - each one provides the memory of a specific trip (not necessarily drug wise) or experience; it's as if they are all he has to remind himself of times that would otherwise have been forgotten.

Occasionally memorable proverbs slip through Dee Dee's lips: "If you go into a kitchen (at a party or friend's house) and all the spoons are missing, you know something is wrong." Yet it is often difficult to be clearheaded when you are one of those spoon-users, "…we left him to turn blue in the bathtub…" He's aware that some of what he might say could be offensive to some, "I better think about what I want to say… I wanted to kill them all." And I don't even know how to introduce the comment about someone having an axe (and in an alternate story, a horseshoe) in her purse. Stability is as alien to Dee Dee as sobriety is to the Irish.

Yet Dee Dee's oratory style doesn't give us the impression that he wants us to feel sorry for him; it is questionable if he even feels sorry for himself. It's clear he has regrets, but he's not ashamed of who he is.

The pretentious poseurs that bask in the idiocy pool of today's music scene are personalities, not people. Dee Dee was a person. And as jilted unstable and unlikable as he may appear at times, he was at least had a mind of his own. Who's to say how much more of a mind he would have had had he steered clear of the ubiquitous drug scene, but even by the end of his life he was far more unaffected and genuine than any self-identified "punk" star of today will ever be.

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