Whenever I read anything even remotely relating to the New York punk scene in the 70s, I get an immediate rush of inspiration. It’s not even always to create something or be proactive, but just to read about people’s lives in the time is so fascinating. I feel truly lucky to be living in a time of such proximity so as to be able to learn about such an explosive era of modern culture. And even though I own no albums by Patti Smith, nor have beyond a vague introduction to Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography, the former’s account of their relationship is simply just too interesting to put down. CBGB’s is nothing more than a hiccup in this book, a break from digesting their dynamic time together. In an oddly voyeuristic stance, I yearned to feel as close to anyone as they did to each other. The key component of this work is the brilliance of Smith’s writing. And despite perhaps an overuse of the word ‘talisman’ (although overused for a reason), I hanged on every word as poor Robert hung on to every last blood cell.
[I’ll never forgive myself for passing up a vinyl version of Horses (or was it Easter?) I noticed on my first ever visit to Reckless on Broadway. I also missed out on Lou Reed’s Coney Island Baby, but that’s another story.]
My first experience with the Bonnie and Clyde of artistry was via the book Please Kill Me, an oral history of punk compiled by Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil. It was my sophomore year in high school, and I thought I was the most rebellious little shit to tear up the North Shore. I fronted a punk rock group called Nailing Amy and on the weekends I would play shows in garages, then get drunk, and wander around the safe suburban neighborhoods, throwing rocks and bottles through windows of buildings under development and screaming ‘Fuck the Police’ with my friend Brian at the top of our lungs. At this point I was blindly following overly left-wing rhetoric disguised as teen angst that I could relate, mostly spearheaded by the band Anti-Flag. I can’t remember how the book made its way into my hands; I believe it was a birthday gift from none other than my parents. It couldn’t have been more than a week cover to cover, I was so enthralled, appalled, and inspired by the stories of the Velvet Underground, the Dead Boys, the Pistols, even the Doors. It was around this time that I began to make the shift from my political ‘awareness’ to giving more consideration to art and thinking philosophically about life. I’ve read this book three times overall, and although it’s been quite some time since the last I read it, I can still remember reading stories as vividly as how they were recalled. I remember a picture of Patti Smith waiting for a subway train, holding a journal or some books. I remember a still of her and Sam Shepard in their performance of ‘Cowboy Mouth.’ And yet, I never bothered to get her albums. I can’t quite say why. It may have been the ‘Hey Joe’ cover she did that turned me off. As much as I was expanding my mind musically, anything related to punk had to be short and fast and pissed off, not a cover of the same old shit. Hopefully now, when I inevitably (and hopefully imminently) relisten, I will be more open-minded and find something I was not able to before.
The book is not strictly about the art that these two ‘kids’ created. Of course, any mention of either of these two people cannot withhold their accomplishments. "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine,” pornography as art, photography as art even, poetry and rock’n’roll…just a few of the things this couple is known for in contemporary culture. And although each of these have their place in the biography, the most fascinating parts involve how they met, how they connected, how they lived by and defined the concept of ‘opposites attract.’ Robert was intrigued with processes, Patti with the results. Although obviously provocative in his work, Robert was initially socially shy and awkward. Patti’s experience with drugs was very minimal, Robert’s almost essential. Although she came off tomboyish (or just boyish as well), Patti shocked people when they found out she wasn’t a lesbian. Tony Ingrassia directed her in a play where she seemed stiff and awkward playing another woman’s lover. He was baffled she couldn’t play the role. “You don’t shoot up and you’re not a lesbian. What do you actually do?” (217). Upon meeting Allen Ginsberg for the first time, she felt uncomfortable keeping a sandwich he bought for her, after he found out she was actually a she (123).
The two things that I took away most from this book: personalization of location and their patience. Where they lived was very important to them. They had started off in Brooklyn and eventually moved to the famous and infamous Hotel Chelsea, where they began to find themselves surrounded by the hitmakers of music and art at the time. Patti continuously referred to it affectionately as ‘Twenty-Third St.,’ portraying the building as another character in her life. They eventually moved into a loft nearby to allow for the room they needed to create, and when that was broken in to, they went their separate ways with the new lovers they had found. Each location retained their own significance though, as important as the setting Patti set in her early years in Logan Square and the subsequent move to Jersey where the majority of her formative years were spent. Dissatisfied to work in a factory forever, she and Rimbaud escaped to the big city and opened up a whole new world of possibility (and poverty), the precursor, what must have been happening simultaneously amongst many others, to a surge of creativity and passion upon the city for the arts.
The patience that Robert and Patti had is incredible, and an often forgot necessity in a world getting faster and more connected. One of the ideas punk rock broke through with was the idea that ‘anybody could do that,’ which can be considered a follow up to the abstract expressionism of Pollack and Rothko in the art world a few decades earlier. It continues to baffle me how many millions upon millions of bands are out there in the world. Looking at a given venue’s calendar and not knowing half the bands, combined with all of the venues I rarely look at (for jazz or classical music) combined with the fact that I only look up one city…it’s amazing that the music business still exists at all. Eventually it may come to a point where music will have to return to the purpose of pure expression. It’s already beginning. It’s so easy to record and spread your music via the Internet; it almost doesn’t make sense to sign to a label. Our minds are adapting to multitasking better and better every day, allowing for musicians to have day jobs, and also participate amongst other arts and various social networks. The point of all this is that Patti Smith and pioneers like her reopened the idea that anybody can do anything they want, and the masses are storming with it. To say Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe are responsible for all of this is a bit of stretch, of course. But they were two people that had visions, and did everything they possibly could, working, hustling, stealing to have the opportunity for that idea to come to fruition. But they had to take their time. These weren’t teenaged superstars. They were in their mid- late twenties before even a hint of success came their way. I do not mean to short change any of the young guns out there. The Smith Westerns are fantastic; many bedroom DJs really know what they are doing. But I can at least take comfort in the fact that the world never passes you up until you let it. Work hard then work harder. Fail then fail better.
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