Because The Night - Patti Smith, Me, and a Dogcatcher in Kansas

June, 1979 and the living is easy

Patti Smith was last in my town, Santa Cruz, as she was fine-tuning her fine art edition of “Woolgathering” with Arion Press, where I was editor-at-large at the time.

What a dream to work with her vision, and to contemplate my long and poignant history with her as a wandering fan.

Because Patti really does get around, and so do I.

My Patti performance history begins in Kansas— not Max's Kansas City nightclub in New York City, but the 100-degree-in-the-shade state of Kansas in June of 1979.

That summer, I had traveled to the University of Kansas in Lawrence, by Greyhound bus, for what I thought was going to be an epoch moment in women's liberation.

"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government..."

—Valerie Solanas

I was both “thrill-seeking and civic-minded”— those were my words to live by.

I was on my way to the National Women's Studies Association conference, held at K.U. I was the 19-year-old "Women's Studies Student Representative," from Cal State Long Beach, and holy chickapoop, was I naive about academia.

I realized in the first hour of the conference that no scholar was present to foment revolution; rather, it was a staging area for anxious academics seeking jobs in a research field under siege.

This was long before the 1980s sex wars, yet I was already discouraged by the feminist establishment. Valerie Solanas herself might've shed a tear for my bust bubble.

I left the university conference halls, staggering through the radiant heat waves of a typical Kansas summer, hiking a half mile to the Episcopalian church which had allowed me to settle a sleeping bag on their basement floor for my overnight stays. Yes, that was my scholarship. Nothing was too good for the "National Women's Studies Student of the Year!" 

Here's where things get good.

I heard a dog crying as I entered the church garden with my backpack. I found a German Shepherd, terribly hurt, lying at the foot of a rhododendron bush. —Bleeding from the lower haunches and whimpering.

The combination of the bitch's suffering and my humilation at the hands of feminist administrators had me close to hysteria.

But that wouldn't be any help to our pup.  I ran into the church, which in 1979, had its doors open 'round the clock with a landline phone in the foyer.

I called  911. The Lawrence operator put me in touch with Animal Control. They told me to wait by the wounded Shepherd and someone would be over "in a jiffy." A jiffy!

Imagine my face when a butch dyke with a bowl haircut and city uniform pulled up to the front door in a white Ford Econoline. A sure sign of unflagging competence!

The officer said, “You look like you’ve been in an accident yourself!”

She told me to get in the front seat and turn on the A/C while she loaded our wounded baby into the back. I clambered in and found a copy of Patti Smith's BABEL, my bible, lying on the cracked vinyl passenger seat.

The Shepherd's savior came around to the driver's side. I stared into her brown eyes and quoted Patti’s lines: "I'll never forget how you smelled that night. Like cheddar cheese melting under fluorescent light."

She answered in kind: "Lay down darling, don't be modest, let me slip my hand in."

These are lines from Babel, Patti's infamous poem about rape. "Ms. Right Now" and I were using it as foreplay. Jesus. 

I bet you want me to tell you the beautiful dogcatcher’s name. I don't remember. 

I don't remember some of the finest lovers I've ever known, et je regrette rien. Since every awesome butch I've ever fallen for, has been blessed with a name right off a lace-covered jam jar, let's call her: Cheri. 

Cheri told me to grab my backpack and bag from the church basement and come along with her. "Wanna see Patti Smith tonight? You can stay at our place."

“Our place” was a Lawrence dyke commune. Things were looking up from the Episcopal basement.

Did she know that the National Women's Studies Association was meeting in Kansas that weekend? Hell no. Her look of total disinterest in the NWSA inspired me. I was finally in the right place, all thanks to a canine 911. 

We smoked a joint in the car— Lawrence homegrown— and Cheri assured me our beautiful puppy would be taken care of. She dropped me off at her pad while she finished her shift. Her roommates made me chicken salad sandwiches with gin and lemonade. I felt like a princess, instead of a lowly student-of-the-year.

That night, Cheri and I jumped on her motorcycle— I know you want to know what kind but all I can tell you is, I held on tight— and we went to a place called the "Off the Wall Hall," where Patti was scheduled for a poetry reading. 

As the following news clipping attests, there was a little poetry, but a lot of talking and music-making.

Unlike the reporter from the Lawrence daily paper, I was ecstatic for the entire set. There were just a few of us; I was sitting right at Patti's feet. She played the clarinet; she talked about the bullshit of the music business and the freedom of poets vs. than the tied hands of rock stars. She played a toy piano and finished her set by singing "Tomorrow, Tomorrow," a capella— the famous song from Annie---  my tears flowed in earnest. No orphan has ever been more plaintive. 

It was a beat poet's set, classic; it reminded me of when I was 2 years old, naked in the bathtub at the Venice Beach Gashouse, a toddler witnessing Ginsberg. It’s in the blood!

One night was perfect  for me, but Cheri wasn't through. Neither was Patti.

Next evening, new venue.

Patti was supposed to play at the Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas— but instead, she was "moved" at the last minute to a biker bar in the middle of nowhere. I'm thinking it was a place called "One Block West," but don't hold me to that. This gig is almost entirely lost to the Internet; I've looked a hundred times.

But I was an eyewitness, so I can't be all wet. I remember Cheri’s bike sliding into a dirt parking lot, filled with Harleys, and plenty of Confederate flags.

I wanted to turn around. Remember, I'd barely escaped Louisville in 1977, under serious Klan pressure. Those were the days before I went to college and my attempts to smash the state were met with Cointelpro-style results. I was accustomed to rednecks pulling guns and hissing in my ear.

Cheri, being a Free State native, waved off my concerns. She thought I was a sweet little college girl from California. Into the bar we hopped. The place was packed with two entirely different communities who only shared one thing: black leather.

On one side wereSmith's punk and dyke acolytes— on the other, a bunch of ZZ-Top aficionados playing pool and Liar's Dice, attended by tanned busty chicks in wife-beaters, sporting tattooed sleeves before anyone ever heard of Urban Aborigines.

The regulars were more than a little annoyed that some unrepentant androgyne in men's clothes, was crashing their weekend party. What was SHE doing on the bar stage?

Unlike Patti's contemplative demeanor in Lawrence, she was wasted this night, voluably pissed at the hijinks that had led to her sudden change of venue. She was railing.

It made for great performance art but I feared for her life. Patti leapt from the stage onto the POOL TABLE, like a parkour artist, knocking the rack and cues off the felt, wielding her mike cord like a bullwhip.

She bellowed, she spat at them: "Shut the fuck up, motherfuckers!" She didn’t dig them drowning out her show.

The bikers could not believe her balls. My throat started closing up. I swore, "Patti Smith is going to be lynched and the riot is starting in 10, 9, 8..."

Her pissed charisma, the screaming guitar—and perhaps our leather bank, all hundred tripping freaks who'd made the pilgrimage— silenced further carnage.

Smith was wearing a striped men's dress shirt and it came undone. She did nothing to close it. The Stars and Bars flag peeled off the wall in the heat. Her pale tits hung in defiance of every cornfed outlaw.

G - L- O- R- I- I- I- I- I- A. 

Thank you, Cheri. Thank you Greyhound bus, thank you boring NWSA. You took me straight to Patti’s wild embrace!

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