It's Official: Hungarian Ambassador Hippest in Washington

Hungary's stock may have taken a dive in the White House following last week's vote in Parliament to withdraw from Iraq. But thanks to Budapest's man in Washington, András Simonyi, the country's high regard among another important American constituency is probably safe for at least a decade. From New York blogger - and former Budapest Week editor - Rick Bruner we got word over the weekend of an event at the Hungarian embassy in Washington so magnificently off-the-wall and clued-in it almost completely restores our faith in the Hungarian political establishment. Because according to the embassy's website, last week Simonyi hosted a tribute to Tamás Erdélyi, better known to the world as Tommy Ramone - as in the Ramones, the greatest punk rock band ever to walk the earth.

After a panel discussion about the role of rock in political change, and Tommy's journey from Budapest to "Blitzkrieg Bop," Simonyi (on guitar in the above photo), Erdélyi/Ramone (vocals), veteran music journalist Chuck M. Young (bass) and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander "Sandy" Vershbow (drums) took to the stage for a short set of Ramones classics. (Tommy, who is also pictured on drums at right, performed with the band from 1974-1978, which is considered the band's "classic" period; sadly, he is the only surviving member of the original line-up.) If you still don't believe the gig actually went down, there is a short video clip posted here.

It's not exactly a state secret that Simonyi fancies himself a rocker. Last fall he gave a similar speech and performance at America's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the role rock played in the collapse of communism. Back then, we compared him favorably to Central Europe's best known rock fan - former Czech dissident president/statesman Václav Havel - because Simonyi actually is a musician, as opposed to someone who likes to hang out with musicians. We even refrained from snarkily mentioning the awkward fact that Simonyi seems to have enjoyed a rather privileged youth under the old system, and went on to serve a party that is the direct successor of the communists.

But bringing in Tommy Ramone for an embassy jam session brings all this to a new level. Even given Tommy's Hungarian heritage - he left in '56, at age seven - it was a masterstroke, because the music of the Ramones is still so gritty and obscure it's hard to imagine it being performed within a kilometer of a diplomatic villa. Compared to the late Frank Zappa and the other jerky art-rockers favored by Havel and other euro-dissident types - well, there is no comparison. The Ramones were not only one of the most important rock bands to ever break an eardrum, they were and are the coolest. We, for example, knew we had finally arrived as proper New York hipsters when, sometime in the early 1990s, we retreated into our bedroom during a blowout party at our flat and found a chipper Dee-Dee Ramone holding court on our bed. We can only imagine how cool it would have been if our flat was an embassy, and he had brought his bass.