20th Nov 2004
Hey! Ho! Let’s Hungar-o!
Alexander Vershbow, the U.S. ambassador to Russia on drums,
and András Simonyi, Hungary’s crazy-looking wall-eyed ambassador to the U.S.,
jamming at the Hungarian Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Not pictured (further off to the right), Chuck Young, Rolling Stone writer, on guitar
CORRECTION: Alright, I had the IDs all screwed up. That’s why this is a hobby,
not a full-time job. Would help if the Hungarian Embassy had used captions on the pics.
As best I can make out, the crazy wall-eyed guy is actually Tommy Ramone
(figures; though I liked it better when he was supposed to be the ambassador).
Guy in the cool t-shirt on bass is (I think) Rolling Stone writer Chuck Young;
the drummer is the U.S. ambassador to Russia, and the Hungarian ambassador is not
pictured here, but but he is pictured here.
This story is just so insane, there’s no need for snarky embelishment, so here are the facts. Tommy Ramone, the sole surving member of the seminal punk band from Long Island Queens, The Ramones, was born Tamás Erdélyi in Budapest and immigrated to the U.S. with his parents during the 1956 Hungarian uprising. Meanwhile, Hungary’s current ambassador to the U.S., András Simonyi (whom Adi assures me is a good guy, representing the country well in interviews she’s seen on CSPAN) is a wannabe rocker. So, the other day, he invited Ramone to Washington, “in an event co-sponsored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Embassy of Hungary,” to speak “about their personal experiences with rock music and the impact that it made on their parallel lives on either side of the Iron Curtain.”
Then, along with the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Alexander Vershbow, and Rolling Stone writer Chuck Young (a punk expert), they cranked out tribute versions of “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “Beat on the Brat” and “Let’s Dance.”
More details, including photos and a video clip, on the Hungarian Embassy’s web site; see also on NPR, Pestiside and Index.hu (for Hungarian speakers; or just look at more pictures, including this crazy second one).
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