I remember the day that I was introduced to Patti Smith’s music. I was 15 years old, living in Danville CA and listening mostly to Bowie, Kraftwerk, Eno and Roxy Music. My best friend Erich Brogger called me and said “Myke, there’s something that I want you to hear. Can I come over now?” Erich came over and put Horses on my Marantz turnatable. The house was empty so we turned it up REAL LOUD. My thought today is exactly the same as when I first heard these songs..Jesus Fucking Christ. She’s a genius…

Free Money MP3

Dancing Barefoot MP3

Land MP3

Gloria MP3

Patti just released her new book “Just Kids” which offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and their lives as androgynous bohemians in the transitional days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies.  Patti writes with a kind of honestly and authenticity about friendship that serves as a reminder that all of the most beautiful things in life are transient and can never be owned.

I find the book particularly fascinating because of the focus on their lives before either of them had any idea what kind of fame and success lay ahead. Really a reminder that when we live fully in the present and pratice creative devotion, anything can happen.

Just to say, I don’t read much, and it takes a lot to get me to commit to any book, but this held my interest from beginning to end and I’m giving it:

5 million stars

A quote from one of Patti’s idols, Arthur Rimbaud

“I want to be a poet, and I’m working to make myself a visionary: you won’t understand at all, and I can hardly explain it to you. . . . The sufferings are enormous, but you have to be strong, to be born a poet, and I’ve realized I’m a poet.”

Arthur Rimbaud, May 1871, at the age of 16

Patti Smith – Smells Like Teen Spirit

Patti Smith Indicts George W. Bush