Intro Television 00:45 Fire Engine Television 04:00 Tuning Television 05:07 Judy (Hello Jim) Television 08:50 Poor Circulation Television 14:00 Tuning Television 14:40 Breakin' In My Heart Television 20:30 Foxhole (The Soldier Boy) Speech 25:39 Patti Smith 26:14 Soundcheck and tuning Patti Smith 28:51 We're Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together Patti Smith 31:33 Redondo Beach Patti Smith 35:45 Birdland Patti Smith 41:46 Speech Patti Smith 43:20 Space Monkey Patti Smith 48:01 Distant Fingers Patti Smith 53:30 Gloria Television 01:00:43 Venus
T elevision 01:04:54 Marquee Moon Television 01:12:39 Friction
I remember beaming at you on the balcony of the velvet
black jewellery box of Irving Plaza, Tim, looking down at that joyous,
one mass, all dancing and moving together, arms, waving, like phantastic
ants that were somehow carrying Irving Plaza somewhere else, the balcony reached by vinyl red staircases tunneling down and up and around
and the stage black curtain pulled apart. Hugo Burnham suspended in
air, cymbals hanging from the ceiling it seemed, drum kit lit front
and central, like he was managing a Star Trek desk and the whole place
lifted off, just lifted off, just joyfully lifted off, didnt it?
We knew
the songs - love will get you like a case of anthrax. At home he's a
tourist. They knew what we all want. I love a man in a uniform.
Unburdened. And you've just reminded me we found out about the secret
after-show at that hotel downtown. I think we got a taxi. Was that the
day I met you, Delphine Blue? Wasn't it taped off but we ducked around. I
remember we were on the grey flat floor with them just alive again just
amazed again adoration. Magi, not just three wise men -- a gang of four
with their gold, sense and Andy Gill, and Andy Gill gone now, gone
beyond the velvet rope. Leaving star dust. What a gift, what
treasure. THAT red album with the men shaking hands that we swept into
the record shop to scoop up and become acquainted with, to grip on the
bus, to put diamond to the groove, and if I close my eyes with it
spinning, be with that heavenly memory.
Just finished this memoir.
It's the girlfriend's story and the magnet within the relationship and all the sticky bits.
It was a page-turner and an eye-opener.
New York is veeeeeeery different now.
It sparked a lot of memories of 1987/1988 when I worked downtown a few streets away from Basquiat's loft on Crosby Street.
On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights I had the crazy walk through
Williamsburg, past the burned out cars and the boys going, "Pssst, hey
mama," delis playing Cuban music, Puerto Ricans playing dominoes sitting
on milk crates etc etc ... before it was gentrified. I would take the J
or M train with it's Coney Island-like ramp over the river on the
rattly bridge to the darkness that was the newly named Tribeca
(repeating triangle below canal to remember the acronym), the new real
estate name late 80s. graffiti on the trains, smoking on the platform,
in the carriage. Was it against the law? I didn't know it but
the bartender at the Odeon was a coke dealer and one time he took me
after work to Save The Robots. Apparently he'd put the coke in my
handbag when I wasn't looking I found out later. I only found out he
was a dealer when he didn't turn up for work one night and it was
explained the police were on to him and he'd done a runner back to
Baltimore. Basquiat's dad used to chat to me when he came in,
waiting for his English girlfriend, in his posh suit and tie. Her name
was Nye. "Hi Nye." "Hello Darling," kiss, kiss. Cos I was also English.
Sometimes Jean-Michel might be in at the same time, at his favourite
table by the stairs, ordering a salad but they never spoke. He
never ate the salad, disappearing downstairs. I might bump into him on
my way down cos that's where the cloakroom was where i locked up the
furs and camel coats. Winter. Or I'd come back and see his salad and tell the bus boy, "No, don't take that. He'll be back."
Doodles on the napkin that stopped the music playing if you know what I
mean. You'd look. Everything would go quiet and then I'd walk back to
my station. Of course I didn't work in the summer so when I got a call from the Odeon August 13 1988 that was a surprise. They asked me what his dad's name was. They were going to call and tell him that Jean-Michel had come back from Haw aii but overdosed. Death was all around. Jennifer Clement has really done a great job with this book. Girls with boyfriends on drugs. What WAS it like?
