Patti Smith

In 1976 I was on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, New Jersey and I stopped by one of the gaming wheels. I placed a quarter down on a number and won an album. My eye caught this striking black and white album cover of an androgynous girl who looked so cool.

I decided that was the album I was going to take with my win. When I returned back to Brooklyn I played the album over and over. One particular song called "Gloria" was amazing to me, I later learned it was written by Van Morrison. This album believe it or not helped me come out of the closet. Patti talked about her love for another girl during the song Gloria and there was a somewhat scary homosexual rape during the song Horses. I was only 16 years old but I really took an interest in the underground NYC punk movement. I started going to Max's Kansas City and begging to be let in. They usually let me in and I would have to sit in the DJs booth all night.

During this time in NYC I met everyone from Blondie to Bowie at Max's Kansas City. I also eventually met Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe the photographer who took that beautiful picture of Patti on her album cover. They were amazing in person, Patti was so mystical and beautiful to me, and Robert Mapplethorpe was just plain strange. A few years later I met him at Keller's a bar on the west side that he would frequent and also I was reintroduced to him at the Mineshaft ( a sex club in NYC) one night. My friend Dan use to arrange all Patti's travel when she lived in Detroit during the nineties, and he was always tell me stories. I went to her concerts all over the world from NYC to Paris, and was always amazed by her performance.

She had some great albums but Horses is my all time favorite. My friend Patrick Mcshane was in the hospital and wanted to hear the newly released "Dream of Life album", I put the earphones on him and I can tell he really like the song "People have the Power, it was a liberating song to me. Patrick died from complications from aids two days later. I never listened the album again after that day, all it represented to me was sadness then.

I haven't heard Patti in years now and I just read an interview in Vanity Fair about her ideas on fashion design. I guess I have moved on, Maxs Kansas City is no longer there, Mapplethorpe has passed, as has so many friends from that period. I have to confess its still good to hear Gloria sometimes blasting out of the speakers.