I swear I saw her pushing a grocery cart down an alley last night talking to herself.
By Greg Villepique
Nov. 9, 1999 |She was a weird icon from the start, a girl who dressed like a boy, a poet with Keith Richards' hair and a strut copied from Bob Dylan in "Don't Look Back," a white woman who called herself a nigger, a darling of the avant-garde who hit the pop charts in 1975 without modifying her vision in the slightest, then abdicated her stardom when she found better things to do. Her first album, "Horses," came out nearly a quarter-century ago and is commonly short-listed as one of the greatest rock albums of all time, but you're unlikely to hear any of it on classic-rock radio: In the mental jukebox of the populace, Patti Smith is represented, if at all, by her one hit single, "Because the Night" -- naturally, the most conventional song of all her '70s output.
Patti Smith was born in 1946 and grew up in working-class South Jersey. A bout with scarlet fever at age 7 left her with recurring hallucinations. She pursued religion for much of her childhood but never caught it -- her problem was not with God, but with the constrictions imposed by organized faith. In her teens, she instead embraced Dylan, the Rolling Stones and, pivotally, the visionary poetry of Arthur Rimbaud. She didn't know yet that she was going to be a poet, much less a singer.
After a brief stint working in a toy factory, two years in college and a timeout to have a baby, which she gave up for adoption at birth, she moved to New York in 1967, with the intention, she later said, of becoming an artist's mistress. The artist she found was Robert Mapplethorpe, also young, hungry and determined to make his mark. Following a period of Brooklyn squalor, during which she drew and painted, Smith spent a few months in Paris, then moved with Mapplethorpe into hipster central, the Chelsea Hotel.
Though she and Mapplethorpe soon broke up (his homosexuality was presumably a stumbling block), they remained close. She began writing poetry, acted in absurdist theater, collaborated on the play "Cowboy Mouth" with Sam Shepard, became increasingly well known on the downtown poetry circuit, published books, wrote swashbuckling rock criticism and, over the course of several years between 1971 and 1974, gave readings at which she was accompanied by guitarist Lenny Kaye, eventually adding pianist Richard Sohl and second guitarist Ivan Kral.
*sigh* That's just ...just ... it's *sniff*...poetry.....
Sorry I'm stumped... both by the name and the pic.
Is this a man or a women, because I sure as hell have never herard of 'it' before.
It that a 5 O'clock shadow?
she's a man, baby!
I didn't know Helen Thomas had a son!!!
That creature must be the illegitimate offspring of Helen Thomas and Bill Clinton......
Once again... if this nation is so terribly run, why not move to Europe where perfection exists right now?
If not Europe, there's China, Russia, Venezuala, Cuba... surely one of these leftist havens would suffice.
Patti, we truly want you to be happy. Please move to the "worker's paradise" of your choice, and leave us in peace. You know, the "peace" you folks love to preach about constantly.
...there just aren't enough heart attacks in the world today.
Id rather be a lampost in Casper WY, than to wear something like that publicly..
She is a skank who's music always sucked. Who gives a **** what she has to say.
Another has-been baby boomer rocker driveling on about subjects that are waaayyyy over her adled mind.
Nothing to see here, move along.
You should post a warning with that picture.
STFU Patti.
Is that photo she's holding a picture of her in her "less ugly" days?
Oh my Gosh, I didn't know Kieth Richards had a sex change operation....
Mustached ladies are always grumpy.
These people and their religion, Environmentalism, are the problem.
And we care what she thinks because???
St. Petersburg, RUSSIA.