suburbanite playacting add-on

i have disliked my subject before: what self-respecting, even self-depricating, woman, not even necessarily a feminist, walking on the edge, living against "the way it's done," wouldn't find kimberly bergalis unlikable?

never brilliant, as i thought ps.

willing to blame the victim publicly, proclaiming her virginity, while privately struggling, so repentantly, to seek foregiveness for sex, lies, and lawsuits.

it's not like that with ps right now.

but too many more facial-tic causing conundrums qua sexuality -- and the question, exclamation: is she really just one of those girls? all along, a punk trickster, she wanted what they wanted: to get the guy and to praise the guy and to thank the guy and to give her desserts to the guy? why not give her sweet cream to lizzie? -- and i don't know.

the submissive thing doesn't work for me, the good-girl-doesn't-curse thing doesn't work for me, the frank-said-to-act-like-a-lady-so-i-did thing doesn't work for me, either.

call darlene, she needs a dye job. blueblack. and eyebrow pencil. and mac-glow lips. and a few plucks. and a pucker, definitely.

induction afterthoughts: playacting suburbanite?

in the induction press coverage, ps was described as

"influential" (Christopher Blagg, "Patti Smith Rocks on Hall of Fame Moment," Boston Herald, 12 March 2007),

a "punk priestess" who "scorched the place" (Scott Mervis, "Smith, Stipe Run the Show at Rock Hall Induction," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 15 March 2007),

a "one album wonder" who is "commercially marginal" (Edna Gundersen, "Dispute Rocks the Hall: Purists Question whether Rap, Metal Artists Belong," USA Today, 12 March 2007),

"another suburbanite playacting in the city" (The Lefsetz Letter, 13 January 2007), and

an icon who "opened doors that female artists have been walking through ever since" (Lliane Hansen, "Spector and Smith, Making Rock History," NPR, 11 March 2007).

Nekesa Mumbi Moody's piece "Rap, Rock and Acrimony: It's Only the Hall of Fame," which appeared in The Seattle Times on 14 March 2007, recounts a conversation between ps and her late husband: "He told her she would get into the hall and that she would feel guilty because he would not make it even though he was more deserving." as the story goes, sonic also urged her to "accept it [the award] like a lady and not to say any curse words."

ok? now, which patti smith does this refer to? the playacting suburbanite? omg! is lefsetz right? has he coined the 70s subtitle?

the induct2day finale contra-verse-shall-e

forgotten words, off key, mess on stage, but people have the power: see it now

induct2day: kickdpoetree n ass

check out http://www.rockhall.com/, click "inductees,"
click "patti smith," read on.

she thought poetry was dying back then:
post-st.markshowl? pre-90snavelgazingengage?

'75: enter the nubbie, nebuly (wavy outline of a cloudpic), from south jersey, onstage at ceebee's, bringnit, neo-protest/ant/ism to her act.

who would have guessed? minister-ess "kick poetry in the ass," today, on stage at the waldorf, recipient of fame, yet not one of her "poetry books" makes it into the top 200 must-haves?

poetry in 2007: blown out the ass? hiding under which fold of flesh? politesse distress?

Induction Day: Santo, Hodges Passed Over Again

Every year this ritual brings tears of joy for those embraced by the gods, and sighs of resignation for the lame, the forgotten and the suspiciously anabolic. It is hard to argue with the Veterans' choice of 1984 World Series winner Van Halen, despite the team's history of internal rivalry and quasi-legal roster changes. Grandmaster Flash? First ballot. No question--if only for the signature pre-game back flips that always brought a smile to youngsters whose dads brought them early to catch BP.

And the case can be made for REM; while never quite as popular as Jesus, their output has spawned at least two generations of myopic textual interpreters, keeping the holy and arcane (read: unreadable) "writ" in creative writing classes for a quarter of a century. Not everyone's coup d'etat, but--whatever.

In this day of slipping standards and sayers of the unsooth, however, someone must draw a line in the sand, between workmanship and art, between service and transcendence. After two promising AA seasons in the Downstairs Grubby Bar League, Patti Smith exploded in the majors like a flashbulb, with "Horses"--exactly like a flashbulb. This self-styled Field Marshall brought passion and pizazz to the position of short-stop, briefly reminding fans of Ozzie ( the "other" Smith) in his prime: the wheeling guitar solos, the burnout vocal intros, and especially the mane of unkempt hair.

But the keyword is "briefly," for unlike Oz, this wizard could not control her magic and wound up raising two sons in Michigan. An uncredited AP story speculates that voters, confused by the name, thought they were lauding the waif-like "Warrior" (that's Patty Smyth, two Why?s), who will in fact be inducted next year.

How soon we forget the golden age, and the golden ageless: Ron Santo (known backstage as The Saint, for reasons best unrehearsed in a family blog) not merely carrying his lunch pail to work every day, but flipping the switch to Genius when the spotlight shone upon him. How many of us spent our childhood summers playing "Innagaddavida" over and over and over again, just to savor his magisterial nine-minute drum solo? And carried the secret knowledge into adulthood . . . that like the humble Hodges, he knew that greatness always stands on the shoulders of others. Contrary to playground rumor, the song had nothing to do with Eden's garden at all. Rather, it was Santo's and his mates' tribute to the legendary pitcher Vida Blue.

Blue got elected to the Hall, rightly and properly. But let's not make it the Hall of Blues. Think before you vote!

missed Toad's Place show

Toad's Place, a venue in New Haven, Connecticut, books new music as well as select retro acts. ps and her band gigged there on the 23rd of February.

i made the trip from south Jersey to New Haven to visit friends and to take in her show. we didn't make it, though. a nostalgic "alas," sigh, "oh well." but what are memories for if not to take the place of missed come-back performances?

did we really want to know what she's "like" now? clearly, not enough.

can ps now even begin to follow up ps then? even though she'll be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the 12th, a sort of punk icon, one of the guys now as well as then, she's 70s not millennial.

that's one reason: the second reason relates -- the audience? who wants to clap (politely) and sing (misremembered words) and perform clicking arthritic movements passing for dancing with others struggling to call up teenage gusto just for the night?

the third reason, perhaps the most important, that bitch who always thought she was too cool to be cool, who'd down five straight-ups one after the other on top of an extra dose of anti-psychotics, whose five trips to the derm left her with an unrepentent chin flap and no niptuck remedy, she'll be there for sure, swinging fists, kicking chairs, throwing girls across the room. who wants to defile perfectly raunchy -- but with an artsy swish -- flashbacks with the bullyish antics of a senescent police magnet, who never got it that punk wasn't violent.