Patti Smith's Just Kids

<><><><> <><><><>

From the very moment I first heard Patti Smith I was enraptured. I was a suburban teenager and this chick from New York was saying just what I was thinking. The first song I ever heard was "Pissing in a River". "Should I pursue a path so twisted?" From that lyric on I was hooked. I found paperback copy of "Babel" in a leftist bookstore when I was in high school. I stole a copy of "Witt" when I was in art school. I had every record she put out and started collecting bootlegs. You see by the time I first heard her she had already disappeared into Michigan. She was an enigma to me, my own J.D. Salinger. Then one day "Dream of Life" came out. She and Fred put out a dream come true, a new Patti Smith album. I got phone calls from people I hadn't seen in years making sure I knew of its release. I of course did and had obtained an advanced copy. Still I hadn't seen her perform but this was the next best thing. I was a diehard fan. I was like a Dead Head without the live shows. I had discovered Robert Mapplethorpe around the same time. I didn't know they even knew each other when I first saw his work. It wasn't until I was looking through a book of his photos and saw the portraits of her I put two and two together in that slow witted teenage way. Suddenly both she and he were so much cooler.

"Just kids" is Patti Smith's newest book. This time it is prose, the story of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe. It is also the story of New York in the seventies. It is their story and it couldn't have happened in any other place and in other era. They were both in the right place at the right time for them. It is a beautiful love story through one of the lover's eyes. This is more than an autobiography it is a painting. It is a story just waiting to be made into a film. Patti Smith being a poet can draw you into the story with her words crafting beautiful images like a photograph or sculpture. She honestly discusses their foibles and failures and celebrates their beauty and humanity. Their desires and belief in themselves can not be ignored. They both wanted to be famous and they succeeded. They wanted fame and she makes no bones about it. They don't come off as fame whores but as artists who need their art to be seen and appreciated. It is of course a sad story. It is a story where one of the lovers dies. That is where their story ends; Robert Mapplethorpe died and Patti Smith carried on. This is a little story for him about him.