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Speaker 1: Hello, We're here to tell you if you haven't already

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Speaker 1: heard that Jake Brennan's award winning podcast, Disgraceland is now

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Speaker 1: on the Exactly Right Network.

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Speaker 2: Disgraceland's a true crime music podcast that dives into the

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Speaker 2: real stories behind the dark side of the music business.

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Speaker 1: And if you're new to the show, we're here to

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Speaker 1: introduce you by sharing one of our favorite episodes, covering

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Speaker 1: the legendary Patti Smith.

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Speaker 2: If you know Patty Smith, you know that she rose

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Speaker 2: to rock fame against the backdrop of seventies New York

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Speaker 2: City when crime was at an all time high and

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Speaker 2: serial killers like the Son of Sam were terrorizing everyone.

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Speaker 1: So please enjoy this episode of Disgraceland, and once you're done,

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Speaker 1: head to their feed to like and follow the show.

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Speaker 2: Please and new episodes of Disgraceland drop every Tuesday, with

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Speaker 2: bonus episodes on Thursday and Rewind's on Sunday.

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Speaker 1: Listen to Disgraceland on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, and make sure to leave

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Speaker 1: a rating or review.

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Speaker 2: It really helps enjoy Disgraceland.

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Speaker 3: Goodbye. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The story

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Speaker 3: about Patty Smith is steeped in true crime, everything from

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Speaker 3: the criminal influence of her artistic heroes Jean Jeanet and

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Speaker 3: William S. Burrows, to the impression made upon her from

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Speaker 3: her mother's obsession with America's first true crime of the century,

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Speaker 3: the Lindberg kidnapping, to the influence of the Manson murders

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Speaker 3: in New York City's forty four caliber killings that Patty

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Speaker 3: lived through in late seventies New York, to the crime

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Speaker 3: and grime of Central Park, the Chelsea Hotel in forty

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Speaker 3: second Street, rape and murder, all of it just to

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Speaker 3: shot away, as they say. But Patti Smith survived all

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Speaker 3: of it to become one of the last centuries great artists,

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Speaker 3: a great musician, someone who made great music. Unlike that

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Speaker 3: music I played for you at the top of the show.

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Speaker 3: That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from

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Speaker 3: my melotron called Falling from Chelsea MK. Two. I played

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Speaker 3: you that loop because I can't afford the rights to

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Speaker 3: one Bad Apple by the Osmonds. And why would I

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Speaker 3: play you that specific slice of plastic sibling cheese? Could

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Speaker 3: I afford it? Because that was the number one song

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Speaker 3: in America on February tenth, nineteen seventy one, And that

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Speaker 3: was the day that Patti Smith first took the stage

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Speaker 3: with more than just words, with a guitarist at her side,

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Speaker 3: and began building a previously unimagined bridge between the art

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Speaker 3: world and rock and roll. And she did it for

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Speaker 3: the criminals.

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Speaker 4: On this episode, Junkies, Murderers, poets, playwrights, death, destruction, the

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Speaker 4: danger of pursuing one's artistic calling, and how true crime

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Speaker 4: helped Patty Smith survive at all.

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Speaker 3: I'm Jake Brennan.

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Speaker 5: This is Disgraceland.

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Speaker 3: Though Patty Smith is known as the godmother of Ponkin

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Speaker 3: was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

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Speaker 3: in two thousand and seven, She's much more than just

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Speaker 3: an iconic rock star. She's a literary luminary, a National

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Speaker 3: Book Award winner, and the recipient of the Penn Literary

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Speaker 3: Service Award. She's been honored by the French Ministry of

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Speaker 3: Culture and the Municipal Arts Society of New York, an

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Speaker 3: organization that in twenty twenty four awarded Patty Smith with

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Speaker 3: their highest honor, the Jacqueline Kennedy on Nassis Medal. She's

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Speaker 3: met the Pope She accepted a Nobel Prize on behalf

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Speaker 3: of and at the request of, none other than Bob Dylan,

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Speaker 3: and her name rings true throughout the same universities and

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Speaker 3: museums that teach and celebrate the author's poets and artists

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Speaker 3: Louisa may Alcott, Arthur Rimbau, and Fried de Callo, to

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Speaker 3: name a few that Patti Smith has drawn inspiration from

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Speaker 3: throughout her life. To dismiss Patty Smith as merely a

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Speaker 3: rock star is like calling Steve Jobs a computer salesman.

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Speaker 3: She is not just a musician. She's what I refer

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Speaker 3: to as the high priestess of art, someone who holds

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Speaker 3: rare dual citizenship in the gritty origins of punk and

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Speaker 3: in the highest echelons of New York and European society.

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Speaker 3: Catholic priests speak of being called to the priesthood that

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Speaker 3: moment when to hear God's voice imploring them to serve Him,

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Speaker 3: to dedicate their lives to him, to sacrifice everything in

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Speaker 3: his name. Many of them faced not just persecution, but

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Speaker 3: even death in pursuit of their calling. Jesus' apostle Peter

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Speaker 3: was crucified upside down. Bartholomew, another apostle was skinned alive,

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Speaker 3: tortured over days, and eventually decapitated. Deacon Lawrence of Rome

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Speaker 3: in the year two fifty eight, a d was roasted

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Speaker 3: to death over an open fire. In seventeen ninety two,

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Speaker 3: during the French Revolution, over two hundred priests were massacred

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Speaker 3: by angry mobs in under forty eight hours. Spanish Clarician priests,

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Speaker 3: Salvadoran Jesuits, Mexican seminary students, and countless others who were

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Speaker 3: once called have been martyred and suffered horrific deaths for

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Speaker 3: they're calling. But Patti Smith, who once famously saying Jesus

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Speaker 3: died for somebody's sins but not mine, was no murdyr.

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Speaker 3: She was and is an artist, and similar to priests,

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Speaker 3: artists here recalling they must also navigate danger, violence, and

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Speaker 3: potential death murder, even in pursuit of their art. So

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Speaker 3: when and where was Patti Smith, the high Priestess of

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Speaker 3: art called to become an artist? And what kind of danger, violence,

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Speaker 3: and true crime did she have to escape to become

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Speaker 3: the artist we all know her to be. As a

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Speaker 3: little girl in suburban New Jersey in the nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 3: the first stories Patti Smith heard were dark. The original

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Speaker 3: Brother's Grim collection of children's fairy tales from the eighteen

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Speaker 3: hundreds spoke of a stepmother in the Juniper Tree story

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Speaker 3: who decapitated her step son and cooked his flesh in

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Speaker 3: a soup to serve to the boy's unsuspecting father. In

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Speaker 3: the original version of Cinderella entitled Askinputul, one stepsister uses

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Speaker 3: a knife to cut off her toes, and another hacks

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Speaker 3: off the heel of her foot. Yet these stories were

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Speaker 3: nothing compared to what Patty later read in the Bible,

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Speaker 3: specifically in the Old Testament, where in Judges nineteen, one

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Speaker 3: woman is severed into twelve different pieces, each given to

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Speaker 3: a different tribe of Israel. Her sin none. She was

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Speaker 3: offered up to protect the crimes of a rapist. In

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Speaker 3: Judges four, Yale offers an unsuspecting enemy general hospitality, but

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Speaker 3: when the general falls asleep, Yale takes a spike and

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Speaker 3: hammers it through his skull. In King's n Eyes, Queen

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Speaker 3: Jezebel's eunuchs throw her from a window, where she's then

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Speaker 3: trampled to death by horses, horses, horses and horse, and

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Speaker 3: later on as a teenager, rape and murder were more

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Speaker 3: than just shot away. All of these stories were right there,

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Speaker 3: out in the open, in Patti Smith's Bible, and in

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Speaker 3: her history books, and in the museums she visited as

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Speaker 3: a child. If the executioner was feeling merciful, he'd build

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Speaker 3: the pire low to the ground to ensure a quick death.

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Speaker 3: But this executioner was not feeling merciful. He built the

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Speaker 3: pire extra high so that Joan of Arc would be

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Speaker 3: guaranteed a prolonged and painful death. And that's exactly what happened.

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Speaker 3: The flames took their time, and the ancient Greeks used

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Speaker 3: funeral pyre to honor their departed emperors and heroes. The

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Speaker 3: Romans too, not the English. When it came to Joan

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Speaker 3: of Arc. They had something else in mind, revenge, public disgrace,

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Speaker 3: maximum pain. In the eyes of the English dominated Ecclesiastical

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Speaker 3: Tribunal of fourteen thirty one, nineteen year old Joan of

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Speaker 3: Arc was a heretic. She claimed she'd been called by

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Speaker 3: a divine voice. She cut her hair, she dressed like

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Speaker 3: a boy. She made a mockery of modern authority in

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Speaker 3: social norms, and in the process inspired and uprising that

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Speaker 3: turned the tide of the hundreds years War, driving the

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Speaker 3: English out of France, and for those perceived sins, she

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Speaker 3: was now roped to a stake in Market Square in

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Speaker 3: the city of Ruan high above a gritted stack of

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Speaker 3: dry wood built to burn slow and fierce, with its

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Speaker 3: blue flames snapping at the ski of her feet, and

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Speaker 3: black smoke corroding her lungs, white hot pain piercing every

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Speaker 3: cell in her body. The blaze rose up over her legs,

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Speaker 3: her midriff, and no one heard her scream and no

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Speaker 3: one saw her cry when the inferno engulfed her completely.

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Speaker 3: Soon enough, Joan of Arc was gone, but embodied only

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Speaker 3: another martyr, this one officially executed for the crimes of

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Speaker 3: heresy and cross dressing, but whose life's work would inspire

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Speaker 3: generations and whose name would forever ring true. In nineteen

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Speaker 3: sixty six, herself just nineteen years old, Patti Smith stood

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Speaker 3: outside on the streets of Philadelphia, across from the Museum

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Speaker 3: of Modern Art, about five miles from the more modern

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Speaker 3: Market Square, and looked up at a statue of Joan

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Speaker 3: of Arc, Emmanuel Fremier's gilded bronze depiction of the young

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Speaker 3: martyr cast a piercing impression upon young Patty. Here was

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Speaker 3: this woman her own age, who gave everything for what

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Speaker 3: she believes. It was then that Patty knew she would

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Speaker 3: have to do the same. It was then that Patty

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Speaker 3: Smith heard her calling in the shadows of martyrs and museums,

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Speaker 3: to become an artist. The stakes of failing to fulfill

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Speaker 3: her life's goal were, as they are for most teenagers,

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Speaker 3: dramatic and intense. A life as anything but an artist,

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Speaker 3: a life as something else in suburban New Jersey, would

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Speaker 3: be its own kind of death. But art was dangerous,

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Speaker 3: and not in the fairy tale Old Testament, musty historical

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Speaker 3: kind of way, but in a real and scary kind

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Speaker 3: of way. One of Patty's favorite novelists, Jean Jeannet, lived

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Speaker 3: in squalor, forced into a life of crime, nearly imprisoned

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Speaker 3: for life. One of her favorite musicians, the jazz singer

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Speaker 3: Billie Holiday, died addicted to heroin. In her final living moments,

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Speaker 3: she was handcuffed to her bed by federal agents and

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Speaker 3: placed under arrest for narcotics possession. One of Patty's favorite painters,

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Speaker 3: Jackson Pollock, was driven to alcoholism and eventually off the road.

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Speaker 3: In his oldsmobile where he flipped his car, crushed his skull,

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Speaker 3: and decapitated one of his passengers. And these were just

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Speaker 3: the artists that Patty knew about. Thanks to her true

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Speaker 3: crime obsessed mother, Patty Smith also knew about the dangers

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Speaker 3: of the world right outside her suburban window. Nineteen thirty two,

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Speaker 3: Patti Smith's mother was traumatized by events that were unfolding

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Speaker 3: over the radio airwaves, just as the rest of the

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Speaker 3: nation was One of America's most famous sons, the Aviator

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Speaker 3: Charles Lindberg, was the victim of what had quickly become

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Speaker 3: America's most famous crime. Lindberg's twenty month old son had

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Speaker 3: been kidnapped. The kidnapper used the latter to creep into

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Speaker 3: the second story nursery of the Limburg's New Jersey estate.

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Speaker 3: Within twenty four hours of the abduction, the crime was

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Speaker 3: a national sensation. By daybreak, over one hundred reporters and

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Speaker 3: photographers had breached the gates of the estate and contaminated

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Speaker 3: the crime scene. Notorious mafioso Al Capone issued a statement

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Speaker 3: from a Chicago jail cell offering a reward for the

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Speaker 3: return of the baby, and before the night of the

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Speaker 3: crime had ended, newswires like the Associated Press were deluged

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Speaker 3: with bulletins, transmitting over fifty thousand words in just hours.

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Speaker 3: Radio stations across the country took the unprecedented step of

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Speaker 3: canceling all programming to issue a coordinated bulletin describing the

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Speaker 3: child's appearance, in creating a complete national radio blackout. And

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Speaker 3: it was through the radio that Patty Smith's mother became

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Speaker 3: transfixed with the early details of the crime, as well

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Speaker 3: as the saga's conclusion. Ten weeks after the kidnapping, the

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Speaker 3: badly decomposed body of Charles Lindbergh's baby was found by

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Speaker 3: a truck driver relieving himself on the side of a

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Speaker 3: New Jersey highway. The infant's corpse had been partially scavenged

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Speaker 3: by animals. Just like Jezebel and the horses, and like

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Speaker 3: Pollock and the crushed skull, like Yale's enemy a hole

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Speaker 3: through the head, and like Joan of Arc, the Lindbergh

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Speaker 3: Baby would not soon be forgotten. Young Patty Smith was

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Speaker 3: transfixed by her mother's retelling of this story. She never

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Speaker 3: forgot it, just like she never forgot the Brother's Grim

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Speaker 3: or the Old Testament, where Jean, Billy Jackson or Joan,

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Speaker 3: and she took was that life was dangerous, and so

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Speaker 3: too the pursuit of art was dangerous, and in nineteen

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Speaker 3: sixty seven, the only place to really pursue art was

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Speaker 3: in America's most dangerous place, New York City. The whispers

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Speaker 3: Patty Smith heard at night in Central Park where the

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Speaker 3: stuff of terror. The park was more than a bucolic

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Speaker 3: playground for New Yorkers to laze away their afternoons. Each

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Speaker 3: night it became a den of violent criminals, thieves, rapists,

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Speaker 3: and murderers, all prowling about for the ruination of souls.

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Speaker 3: Central Park was also Patti Smith's sometime bedroom. It was

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Speaker 3: where she'd lie down during that first summer when she

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Speaker 3: arrived in the city. On those nights when she couldn't

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Speaker 3: find a welcoming doorway in which to lay her head,

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Speaker 3: Central Park was where she slept. And in nineteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 3: Central Park was also the place where a fifteen year

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Speaker 3: old girl was brutally raped and her friend stomped so

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Speaker 3: severely that he was left in critical condition. It was,

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Speaker 3: in the mid nineteen sixties a place where nearly one

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Speaker 3: thousand felonies were committed on average each year in Central

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Speaker 3: Park during the Summer of Love. For all the groups

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Speaker 3: of young hippies strewn about on blankets with acoustic guitars

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Speaker 3: and flowers in their hair, there were just as many

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Speaker 3: any self described wolf packs, hordes of young neighborhood delinquents

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Speaker 3: swarming the park in shifts to rob in main not

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Speaker 3: just the hippies, but the homosexuals cruising the park so

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Speaker 3: called predatory zones. Patti Smith may have slept in Central Park,

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Speaker 3: but it was in another park where she met the

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Speaker 3: first great love of her life, Robert Maplethorpe. She knew

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Speaker 3: him from the bookstore where she'd taken a job. He

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Speaker 3: was a customer, and she was in Tompkins Square Park

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Speaker 3: on a date with an older man, a man who

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Speaker 3: could afford to buy her a meal that she could

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Speaker 3: not afford to buy herself. But in New York City,

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Speaker 3: nothing's free, So just before the man attempted to collect

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Speaker 3: his payment sexually, Patti Smith recognized the good looking boy

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Speaker 3: from the bookstore and ran to him in the park,

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Speaker 3: introducing him on the spot to a predatory lunch date

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Speaker 3: as her boyfriend. Robert Maplethorpe, who was high on LSD

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Speaker 3: at the time, went along with the ruse, which he

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Speaker 3: no doubt thought was hilarious. Robert found Patty Lee Smith

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Speaker 3: to be not only funny, but also sexy, intelligent, creative,

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Speaker 3: a perfect partner in crime for his own first foray

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Speaker 3: into New York City. They shared the same goal to

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Speaker 3: become artists. They weren't sure what kinds of artists they

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Speaker 3: wanted to become, just that they were most certainly destined

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Speaker 3: to create things that would change the world of culture

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Speaker 3: and art as they knew it. In their first apartment together,

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Speaker 3: the one in Brooklyn where they had to scrub the

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Speaker 3: wall of the splattered blood and psychotic scribblings from the

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Speaker 3: previous tenant, they painted, created drawings and collages, and wrote.

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Speaker 3: They read the great works of the great writers, those

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Speaker 3: who were also criminals, not just Jean Jeanne, but oh

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Speaker 3: Henry and William S Burrows, Burrows who shot and killed

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Speaker 3: his wife in a game of William Tell and got

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Speaker 3: away with it. And they studied to Cooney and Rivera,

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Speaker 3: Warhol and Picasso, and prayed at the altar of Coltrane,

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Speaker 3: sympathized with those devils the rolling Stones, and filled in

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Speaker 3: the ooral gaps with the Cherells and Dylan, Bob not Thomas.

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Speaker 3: They had little food, even less money, and they stole

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Speaker 3: when they had to, but they never begged. What they

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Speaker 3: did have was desire, and that desire gave way to faith,

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Speaker 3: and faith to creation, and soon the artistic callings of

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Speaker 3: each would bear fruit. Robert with photography and Patty with words.

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Speaker 3: A new apartment, this one in Manhattan, signified progress, with

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Speaker 3: the chalk outline of the dead body outside the front

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Speaker 3: door precipitated another move to a less dangerous neighborhood, so

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Speaker 3: further uptown they went to the Chelsea Hotel. These days,

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Speaker 3: the Chelsea Hotel on West twenty third Street, like most

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Speaker 3: of Manhattan, is a glitzy, gentrified incarnation of what it

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Speaker 3: once was, a dangerous rooming house for bohemian vagabonds. In

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Speaker 3: nineteen sixty nine, the Chelsea was part artist colony, in

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Speaker 3: part central command for the drug fueled late sixties counterculture,

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Speaker 3: housing and hosting the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Leonard Cohen

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Speaker 3: in the Velvet undergrounds. Nico Salvador Dali stayed at the

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Speaker 3: Chelsea when there was no room at the Saint Regis

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00:20:43,600 --> 00:20:47,639
Speaker 3: Alan Ginsburg cruised the lobby for dates, even taking Patty

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Speaker 3: to lunch one day, mistaking her with her short crop

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Speaker 3: Joan of arc Hare to be a young pretty boy.

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Speaker 3: Dylan died at the Chelsea Thomas not Bob, while the

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Speaker 3: poet fell into a comb in Room two five after

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Speaker 3: downing eighteen straight whiskies before he was carried off to

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Speaker 3: be pronounced dead at Saint Vincent's. The Andy Warhol superstar

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Speaker 3: Evie Cedric set her room at the Chelsea on fire

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Speaker 3: while high on barbituates. She had to be rescued from

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Speaker 3: room one oh five, where Warhol had shot part of

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Speaker 3: his acclaimed nineteen sixty six film Chelsea Girls. In a

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Speaker 3: few years prior, a twenty year old dancer named Lucille

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Speaker 3: Andell found herself on the roof of the Chelsea Hotel.

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Speaker 3: She walked carefully on her tiptoes close to the edge

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Speaker 3: before giving into the darkness that had overtaken her, plunging

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Speaker 3: to her death ten stories below. Along the way, the

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Speaker 3: usually graceful Lucille struck the third floor fire escape with

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Speaker 3: a thud, partially dismembering herself before pancaking on West twenty third,

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Speaker 3: but all the danger that the Chelsea Hotel repres Sena

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Speaker 3: didn't scare Patty Smith. Instead, it compelled her. Besides, Patty

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Speaker 3: could navigate it. She wasn't big into drugs and she

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Speaker 3: seldom drank. And besides, she and her partner, Robert Maplethorpe

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Speaker 3: were broke. Which other hotel would take art as collateral

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Speaker 3: until they could come up with the cash to rent

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00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:25,879
Speaker 3: a room. None and no other hotel had Burrows and

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Speaker 3: the poet Jim Carroll roaming its halls. Patty befriended both

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Speaker 3: of them. She also befriended Janis Choplin, who stayed in

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Speaker 3: Room four or eleven during her run of shows at

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Speaker 3: the Fillmore East. Patty listened to Janis express herself through music.

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00:22:42,280 --> 00:22:45,680
Speaker 3: Patty worked up poems with Jim Carroll, and Patty met

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Speaker 3: Bob Dylan's fixer and confident, Bob Newarth. Bob Newarth encouraged

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Speaker 3: Patty to work her poems into songs, to listen to

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Speaker 3: Hank Williams, to listen to Blind Willie mctel, to get

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Speaker 3: down to the root of what she felt, and to

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Speaker 3: pull it out and spill it all over open chords

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Speaker 3: on an acoustic guitar. Creatively Patty was encouraged and compelled.

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Speaker 3: Robert was too, but in a darker way. It was

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Speaker 3: nineteen sixty nine The Rolling Stones, as Brian Jones had died,

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Speaker 3: and so too did the lsd Dreams from the Summer

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Speaker 3: of Love. Robert took the Stone's sympathy for the devil

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Speaker 3: a little too literally. Charles Manson was all anyone at

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Speaker 3: the Chelsea could talk about in nineteen sixty nine. Just

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Speaker 3: as Patty Smith's mother had been obsessed with the Lindberg case,

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Speaker 3: Robert Maplethorpe was obsessed with this latest crime of the century.

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Speaker 3: Out in Hollywood. Seven people were dead in what appeared

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Speaker 3: to be a ritualistic murder spree with a decidedly rock

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Speaker 3: and roll edge. The Tate LaBianca murders in August of

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Speaker 3: nineteen sixty nine were hard not to be affected by,

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Speaker 3: and so Robert Maplethorpe began working a darker vision into

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Speaker 3: his art. He became obsessed with the concept of evil.

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Speaker 3: It was a stark counterpoint to his Catholic upbringing, a

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Speaker 3: reflection of what he saw on the street up on

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Speaker 3: forty Second, where he hustled sex for cash to help

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Speaker 3: support himself and Patty. Patty worried about Robert. Sex work

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00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:32,119
Speaker 3: was as dangerous as a gun. Nineteen sixty nine, Midtown Manhattan,

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Speaker 3: forty second Street aka the Deuce, a neon open air

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Speaker 3: sex market, predators and prey pros and junkies applying their

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Speaker 3: trade for pimps and pushers, chickenhawks, older skeevy looking men

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Speaker 3: in trench coats on the prow for young runaways. A

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00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:56,439
Speaker 3: few dollars went a long way. A runaway could make

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Speaker 3: a buck or two with one job and be able

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Speaker 3: to afford a slice of pizza, a coke, and a

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Speaker 3: movie ticket into one of the theaters, the Liberty, the Empire,

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Speaker 3: the Victory, and be able to pass out in relative

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Speaker 3: peace and quiet until the shakedown artist showed up looking

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00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:15,840
Speaker 3: to rob this using patrons out on the street. Robert

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00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 3: Maplethorpe kept his cool. It was all about the look,

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Speaker 3: the right nod from the right dude, and Robert knew

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Speaker 3: it was on. But danger was everywhere. Cops posed as

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Speaker 3: John's to entrap hustlers and turn their backs when they

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00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 3: were harassed and assaulted. Many clients refused to pay. Some

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00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 3: insisted on rough stuff with hustlers. Strangulation, knife play. Sickos

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Speaker 3: were slitting the throats and the theaters, and the working

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Speaker 3: boy's screams drowned out by the soundtracks blasting from the screens.

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Speaker 3: Robert was a quote unquote rent boy, or so he

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Speaker 3: told himself. He worked the streets to help pay his

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00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 3: and Patty's rent Chelsea. It wasn't the sex so much

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00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:07,399
Speaker 3: that bothered Patty, it was the danger. Their relationship was

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Speaker 3: an open one, and Robert's homosexuality by this time was

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Speaker 3: no secret. It was also around this time that Patty

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00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 3: became romantically involved with the poet Jim Carroll. Jim hustled

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Speaker 3: up on forty second Street as well. Robert asked Jim

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Speaker 3: how he knew that he wasn't gay. Jim told him

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Speaker 3: that he knew because he always asked for money, whereas

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Speaker 3: sometimes Robert didn't. Either way, Jim hustled for heroin, Robert

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00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:42,680
Speaker 3: hustled for rent. For Robert there was no other way

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Speaker 3: to support his pursuit of becoming an artist, and for

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Speaker 3: Patty there had to be a less dangerous way. Sam

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Speaker 3: Shepherd was that way. Sam was a writer, a California cowboy,

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Speaker 3: a musician, an established off Broadway playwright, and by the

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Speaker 3: time he and Patti Smith began their affair at the

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Speaker 3: Chelsea Hotel, already a husband and father. It didn't matter.

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00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 3: Sam encouraged Patty to sing, He bought her her first guitar.

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00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:21,919
Speaker 3: He encouraged her artistically, romantically. Sam was dangerous, but compared

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Speaker 3: to Jim Carroll.

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Speaker 4: He was safe.

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00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 3: Sam Shepherd exuded life, not junkie death. Sam didn't hustle, well,

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Speaker 3: he did, but in a different way. Sam made shit happen,

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Speaker 3: and by the time he was twenty seven, he'd won

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Speaker 3: four Obie Awards for four different plays. The Obis are

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Speaker 3: the highest awards given to off Broadway artists. Sam Shephard

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00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:51,879
Speaker 3: won three in one year. Sam convinced Patty that she

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Speaker 3: had something to say, as if she needed further validation,

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00:27:56,240 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 3: but still hearing that her words carried weight from a

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00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:05,399
Speaker 3: sexy award winning playwright couldn't hurt. Sam prevailed upon Patty

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Speaker 3: to collaborate with him on a new play, and they

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00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 3: called it Cowboy Mouth. Cowboy Mouth was a semi autobiographical

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Speaker 3: account of Sam and Patty's relationship. Both acted in the

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Speaker 3: two lead roles. When it was staged in April of

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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy one, and there it was Sam and Patty's

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00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 3: illicit relationship brought to life for all to see. Afterward,

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00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 3: Sam freaked out, he had a wife and a kid,

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Speaker 3: that it was wrong and he knew it. He abruptly

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00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 3: left New York City to return to his family in Vermont.

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00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 3: At first, Patty was devastated, but it didn't take long

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Speaker 3: before she put a relationship with Sam Shepard in the

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00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 3: proper perspective. It was brief, explosive, and overall a positive

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00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 3: experience in the end, despite who got hurt and how

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00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 3: it was worth it because Sam I'm Shephard helped Patty

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00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 3: Smith finally find her voice. Cowboy Mouth wasn't just autobiographical.

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00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 3: It was also about a character who moves seamlessly between

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00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:18,959
Speaker 3: art and crime, specifically music, rock and roll, actually and crime.

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00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 3: To this point in her life, Patti Smith had spent

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00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 3: her life moving between art and crime, shoplifting, harrowing, hustling,

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00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 3: Charles Lindbergh, Charles Manson, chalk outlined bodies and bloodstained tenement walls,

407
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Speaker 3: Jean Janet, William Burrows and William Tell, Willie Micktel, Bob Newarth,

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Speaker 3: Robert Maplethorpe, and Jim Carroll, Sam Shepherd. It was all

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00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 3: one big art and crime collage. It was who she

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00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 3: had become, and now it was time to give voice

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00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 3: to all of that transgressive influence, to bridge the gap

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Speaker 3: between art and artist, to be the voice of the voiceless,

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Speaker 3: for those persecuted for following their calling, for their crimes,

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Speaker 3: and to do it all with rock and roll. We'll

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Speaker 3: be right back after this. We're We're, We're On February tenth,

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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy one, Patti Smith stood on stage at Saint

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Speaker 3: Mark's Church in New York's East Village and stared out

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Speaker 3: at the crowd. By her side, a lanky and musically

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Speaker 3: lethal guitar playing friend, Lenny Kay, staring up at them

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Speaker 3: from the audience, a who's who of downtown cool, Lou Reed,

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00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 3: Todd Rudgren, Robert Maplethorpe, Alan Ginsburg, and Moore. The evening

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00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 3: was billed as a night of poetry featuring the Warhol,

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00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 3: performance artist and poet Gerard Malanga and Patti Smith. For

424
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 3: whatever reason, Patty decided to include a musical element. Lenny

425
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 3: Lenny was already a musical encyclopedia. He wrote for jazz

426
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 3: and pop rolling Stone Crawdaddy, and at the time was

427
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 3: busy assembling songs for what would become one of the

428
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 3: greatest compilation albums in rock and roll history, the Nuggets

429
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:21,720
Speaker 3: Original Artifacts from the Psychedelic Era nineteen sixty five to

430
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty eight set, which would become the definitive collection

431
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 3: of American garage rock singles and eventually one of punk

432
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 3: rock's guiding lights. In fact, the Nuggets' liner notes feature

433
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 3: one of the earliest uses of the term punk rock.

434
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 3: Lenny Kay not only knew how to play guitar, Lenny

435
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 3: Kay knew his ship. With Lenny at her side, Patty

436
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:50,840
Speaker 3: Smith stared out into the audience. As the crowd settled,

437
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 3: the two performers looked at their guests, their faces flushed

438
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 3: with anticipation. They could all sense it something different was

439
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 3: about to happen. New Yorkers know this feeling. It's familiar,

440
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 3: the promise of the new that feeling that you're about

441
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 3: to be let in on the secret, in on something special.

442
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 3: It's a promise that in the nineteen seventies, New York

443
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 3: City seemed to constantly fulfill. The lights dimmed, guitar feedback

444
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 3: began to creep from Lenny's amplifier, and the crowd dropped

445
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 3: the nervous chatter. The feedback unfurled throughout the room, bending

446
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 3: both piercing and warm at the same time, like a

447
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 3: blanket of nails, and Patty grabbed the microphone atop the

448
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 3: stand with one hand, raised her other hand in the air,

449
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 3: and abruptly brought it down to her side. Lenny muted

450
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 3: his guitar silence. Patti Smith leaned into the microphone and said,

451
00:32:54,920 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 3: this one's for the criminals. With that, Lenny k least

452
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 3: the squeal and squawk from his Gibson melody maker, and

453
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:06,840
Speaker 3: Patty meted out the powerful words from the first lines

454
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 3: of her poem Oath, Jesus died for somebody's sins, but

455
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 3: not mine. And suddenly it wasn't a poem anymore. It

456
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 3: was a song, and with Lenny it was rock and roll.

457
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 3: Patty Smith had answered her calling and people loved it.

458
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 3: The crowd that night adored her, and Patty was indeed

459
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 3: something new, something unseen, A transgressive hybrid of poetry and music,

460
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 3: was something powerful to say. The sins of her generation

461
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:45,240
Speaker 3: were not yet answered for, and maybe they weren't even sins.

462
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 3: Who knew that was the point, all the crime, all

463
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 3: the transgression, the so called sins. The cross was theirs

464
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 3: and theirs alone to bear heresy. Like all great art,

465
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 3: the action is in the risk. Patty's words were shocking,

466
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 3: like Joan of ARC's words. Patty's possessed unyielding conviction, and

467
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:14,960
Speaker 3: those words had the power to inspire. And inspire they did.

468
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 3: Patty and Lenny brought their rock and roll poetry hybrid

469
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:22,960
Speaker 3: to other stages. After this, they opened for the New

470
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:26,360
Speaker 3: York Dolls that their famed Mercer Art Center gigs. They

471
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:29,239
Speaker 3: played Le Jardin at the Other End, which had been

472
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 3: and would again be called the Bitter End. Before long,

473
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy five, Patty found herself on the Bowery

474
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:41,320
Speaker 3: in Manhattan's Lower East Side, with all its grit and grime,

475
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 3: a motley collection of the unhoused and unwashed, derelx and

476
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 3: artists clinging desperately to a world trying to shake them

477
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:53,480
Speaker 3: loose like fleas on the backside of a rabid dog,

478
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 3: all just steps from William S. Burrows's apartment, where the

479
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 3: iconic novelists lived in squalor and would receive Patty as

480
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 3: a guest. Whenever she was in the neighborhood. It was

481
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:08,960
Speaker 3: just Patty in her fearlessness and her curiosity, and Borrows

482
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:13,760
Speaker 3: and his heroin and his shotgun. Down the street near Bleaker,

483
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 3: the crowd assembled outside the doors of cebe GEB's A

484
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 3: Little Die. No one had cared about five minutes before,

485
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:24,360
Speaker 3: But tonight, Patty, in the new band she'd assembled with

486
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 3: Lenny on guitar, Richard Sole on piano, Ivan Carl on bass,

487
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:31,760
Speaker 3: and j. D. Darty was set to perform the Patti

488
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 3: Smith Group, along with one of the most inventive groups

489
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 3: to come out of the nineteen seventies in New York television.

490
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:42,400
Speaker 3: Both bands were in the midst of a multi week residency.

491
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:45,759
Speaker 3: Just like at the Saint Mark's Church gig a few

492
00:35:45,840 --> 00:35:49,280
Speaker 3: years prior, you could feel the anticipation in the air,

493
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 3: except now there were actual stakes. Ever since that first

494
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 3: performance at Saint Mark's, Patty was heralded as a savior.

495
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 3: This new art was creating, this poetry rock and roll hybrid.

496
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:07,000
Speaker 3: It was the natural progression of a century long march

497
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 3: from the romance of Arthur Rimbau to the squalor of

498
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 3: Jean Jeannet, to the grime of Jim Carroll, to the

499
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 3: pop of the Andy Warhol, to the music of Patti Smith.

500
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 3: And therefore, Patty's music was seen as the antidote to

501
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 3: the poisonous drivel filling airwaves in the mid seventies, soulless, bloated,

502
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 3: spiritually starved rock music. Patty was unofficially drafted by New

503
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:39,320
Speaker 3: York's downtown tastemakers and uptown glitterati too. As she said, quote, preserve, protect,

504
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 3: and project the revolutionary spirit of rock and roll unquote,

505
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 3: And that's exactly what the Patti Smith Group did each

506
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:52,279
Speaker 3: night at CBGB's. Patty drew strength from her mentor, William S.

507
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:55,200
Speaker 3: Burrows and her best friend, the first great love of

508
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:59,359
Speaker 3: her life, Robert Maplethorpe, both of whom positioned themselves each

509
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:03,880
Speaker 3: night right up front. Robert was devoted to Patty's success

510
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:05,839
Speaker 3: as an artist in the same way he was to

511
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 3: his own, on a near spiritual level. Soon, the powerful

512
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 3: executive Clive Davis from Arista Records would also devote himself

513
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 3: to Patty's success, signing her to a lucrative recording contract.

514
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:24,440
Speaker 3: The Patti Smith Group's debut album, Horses produced by the

515
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:27,759
Speaker 3: Velvet Undergrounds John Cale, the one with the stark and

516
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:31,959
Speaker 3: beautiful Robert Maplethorpe portrait of Patty on the cover, did

517
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:35,160
Speaker 3: what it was supposed to do, its part to save

518
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 3: rock and roll. The album begins with a bang, just

519
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 3: as Patty did at Saint Mark's, with a powerful rejection

520
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:48,800
Speaker 3: of the past. Somebody sins but not mine. Horses nailed

521
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:52,759
Speaker 3: the moment. Kids loved it, so did the critics. None

522
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 3: other than America's greatest rock critic, Lester Bangs said in

523
00:37:56,040 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 3: his Cream magazine review that Patty's songs on Horses to quote,

524
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 3: deep wellsprings of emotion that extremely few artists in rock

525
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 3: or anywhere else are capable of reaching. Unquote, that was

526
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:15,800
Speaker 3: just it, few artists in rock or anywhere else. I

527
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,879
Speaker 3: don't know if Lester Bangs intended to cast Patty's are

528
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 3: outside the parameters of rock or not, but that's exactly

529
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:27,360
Speaker 3: where her creativity was leading her. She wasn't just a musician.

530
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 3: She was clearly something else, something new, someone an artist

531
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 3: who wasn't only revealing something about herself and her listeners,

532
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:40,799
Speaker 3: she was revealing something that hadn't been revealed before. Here

533
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:43,719
Speaker 3: was an artist who was reclaiming rock and roll from

534
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:47,760
Speaker 3: under the safe nightlight of mainstream rocks radio play duvet

535
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,240
Speaker 3: and dragging it back under the grimy blanket of nails

536
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:56,560
Speaker 3: inhabited by the criminal underworld, both the perpetrators and the victims.

537
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:02,440
Speaker 3: Patty Smith was a revolution in an iconic twist. Her

538
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 3: cause was celebrated not only downtown but uptown as well.

539
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 3: Soon elite culture would take note and open its doors.

540
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 3: Aside from the predictable growsing from conservative detractors over her

541
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:21,800
Speaker 3: line about Jesus, everyone it seemed, loved Patty Smith's music

542
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 3: except Robert Maplethorpe. Well, not exactly. Robert was an ardent

543
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 3: supporter of Patty's, but ever since their earliest days, when

544
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:34,719
Speaker 3: Patty would sing to them back in that Brooklyn apartment,

545
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:37,879
Speaker 3: Robert would always say to her, sing me a song

546
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 3: I can dance to, Patty. The world didn't dance to

547
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:45,600
Speaker 3: the songs on horses. They studied them like something worthy

548
00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 3: of a museum exhibit. No, the dancing would come later

549
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:54,720
Speaker 3: with Bruce Springsteen. Perhaps you've heard of him. At the time,

550
00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 3: Bruce Springsteen had just become the definition of an overnight

551
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 3: sensation upon relief his third album, Born to Run. The

552
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:05,400
Speaker 3: previously obscure rock and roll band leader had rocketed to

553
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:08,360
Speaker 3: stardom when he appeared on the covers of both Newsweek

554
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 3: and Time magazine simultaneously. Now in July of nineteen seventy six,

555
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:17,759
Speaker 3: he was filing a lawsuit against his manager, trying to

556
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 3: extricate himself from a horrible contract, one that he believed

557
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 3: to be criminal. Patti Smith, at the time, was playing

558
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 3: shows in support of horses and preparing to record her

559
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:33,840
Speaker 3: follow up album, Radio Ethiopia, while living with her new boyfriend,

560
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 3: the guitarist from Blue Oyster Cult, Alan Lanier. None of

561
00:40:38,239 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 3: them knew it yet, but all three of these artists,

562
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 3: much like their New York City fans, were about to

563
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 3: be gripped in fear. Young lovers like Patty and Allen,

564
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 3: and like the couples who flocked to record stores to

565
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 3: purchase Springsteen's records, were about to get swept up in

566
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,919
Speaker 3: a year of paranoia, because, as the New York City

567
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:07,360
Speaker 3: night now belonged to a lunatic July twenty ninth, nineteen

568
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 3: seventy six, one ten Am Pellam Bay the Bronx, two women,

569
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:16,959
Speaker 3: eighteen year old Donna Lauria and nineteen year old Jody

570
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 3: Valenti sat in a nosemobile on the side of the

571
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:22,719
Speaker 3: road in the dark of night, discussing the time they

572
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 3: just had at Peach Trees, a local discotheque, and the

573
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:28,920
Speaker 3: heavy rhythm from the tramps that's where the happy people

574
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:33,320
Speaker 3: go supplied the adrenaline still coursing through them. The vibe

575
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 3: was pierced by a passing car on a not so

576
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 3: far away street blaring the haunting new hit by Blue

577
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 3: Oyster Cult, Don't Fear the Reaper. Suddenly the mood turned,

578
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 3: the street got a little darker, the inside of the

579
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:52,799
Speaker 3: car a little quieter. Donna opened the door to leave.

580
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 3: From out of the darkness a man with a gun.

581
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,799
Speaker 3: Donna startled. The man crouched onto one knee, took aim

582
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:06,840
Speaker 3: at Donna with both hands, and Jody screamed. Donna Lauria

583
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:11,319
Speaker 3: died instantly. The gunman got off another two shots, and

584
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 3: one hit Jody in the thigh. She lived to tell

585
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 3: the harrowing story to the New York newspapers. Three months later,

586
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 3: the next shootings happened two young lovers, eighteen year old

587
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:29,400
Speaker 3: Rosemary Keenan and twenty year old Carl Denaro escaped the

588
00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 3: killer who fired into Carl's car and Queen's Carl took

589
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 3: a bullet in the head but survived and sewed, did Rosemary.

590
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 3: The cops connected the forty four caliber shellcasings from the

591
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:43,799
Speaker 3: Queen shooting to the Bronx shooting, and the papers came

592
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:47,280
Speaker 3: up with a spiffy name for this lunatic terrorizing New Yorkers,

593
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 3: the forty four caliber killer. Baby. Don't Fear the Reaper.

594
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 3: That line from the Blue Oyster cult single kept asking

595
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 3: the impossible from speakers across the city in the spring.

596
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 3: In summer of seventy six and later in November, another shooting, Seasons,

597
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:13,720
Speaker 3: Don't Fear the Reaper. Another couple of teenage girls, another Donna,

598
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:19,320
Speaker 3: this one Donna Demassi sixteen, along with joe Anne Lomino eighteen.

599
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:25,560
Speaker 3: Two shots and both girls survived, but the papers, especially

600
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 3: the New York Daily News columns Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill,

601
00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 3: traded inc for industry scale paranoia. New Yorkers sweated out

602
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:36,400
Speaker 3: the winter La.

603
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 5: La la la La.

604
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:43,320
Speaker 3: Don't fear the Reaper. The new year nineteen seventy seven

605
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 3: new shootings. Another couple alone in the car. Christine Freud

606
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:54,520
Speaker 3: twenty six and John Diale thirty both were shot. She survived,

607
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 3: he didn't, And the papers did their thing, and the

608
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:03,400
Speaker 3: public paranoia ratcheted even high. Love of two is one here,

609
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:08,240
Speaker 3: but now they're gone. March eighth, nineteen seventy seven, another

610
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 3: shooting college student, Virginia Vuscashin, was walking back to her

611
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 3: home in Queen's in the dark after class when the

612
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 3: gunman appeared out of nowhere. She saw the gun, she

613
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 3: raised her textbook in front of her face. The gunman shot,

614
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 3: and the bullet blasted through the book and into Virginia's face.

615
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 3: Virginia was dead here, but now they're gone. A month later,

616
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 3: a model and her boyfriend parked at about three am

617
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 3: on the side of the Hutchinson Parkway in the Bronx.

618
00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 3: One dead model, one dead boyfriend. Romeo and Juliet are

619
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:50,280
Speaker 3: together in eternity. Come on, baby, don't fear the reaper.

620
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:56,400
Speaker 3: And on May thirtieth, nineteen seventy seven, when Daily News calmed,

621
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 3: Miss Jimmy Breslin was revealing to the world the psychotic

622
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 3: rambling of the forty four caliber killer sent to Breslin

623
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:06,400
Speaker 3: himself by the Killer, who claimed for all to be,

624
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 3: in his words, the son of Sam aka the self

625
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 3: proclaimed Chubby Bohemoth aka Beezobub aka Satan aka Death himself

626
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 3: aka the Reaper. While Breslin freaked New York City the

627
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 3: fuck out, while cops hunted for the killer and the

628
00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:32,640
Speaker 3: killer hunted for victims, Patty Smith was planning her next album,

629
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 3: her third, the follow up to Radio Ethiopia. And while

630
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:41,680
Speaker 3: the NYPD hunted for the Son of Sam, Patty was

631
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:45,359
Speaker 3: still hunting for a song her friend Robert Maplethorpe could

632
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 3: dance to. By June of that year, Bruce Springsteen had

633
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:53,760
Speaker 3: finally extracted himself from his legal problems. It was beginning

634
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 3: work on his belated follow up to Born to Run,

635
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 3: an album called Darkness on the Edge of Town, and

636
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 3: there was plenty of darkness to go around, especially in

637
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:08,840
Speaker 3: New Yorktown. Investigators were at a dead end, unable to

638
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 3: hunt down the Sun of Sam. The Knight no longer

639
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 3: belonged to the city's lovers, but Springsteen didn't care. There

640
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 3: was something there, the wisp of a song. As the

641
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 3: sessions began with producer Jimmy Iavin, Springsteen had the chorus.

642
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:29,920
Speaker 3: It was defiant, triumphant. It reclaimed something. It went because

643
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 3: the knight belongs to lovers. But that was it. That

644
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 3: was all he had. The end of June came and

645
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:43,920
Speaker 3: the Son of Sam shot another couple, Salvatore Lupo twenty

646
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:48,799
Speaker 3: and Judy Placbo seventeen, and both survived. The Cobs kept

647
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:51,239
Speaker 3: up their hunt for the killer, but were still coming

648
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:54,879
Speaker 3: up empty by the end of the month. July hit

649
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:57,760
Speaker 3: with the heat of a thousand suns, and that meant

650
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:00,200
Speaker 3: that it had been a full year of terror in

651
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 3: New York City. The self proclaimed chubby bohem Is celebrated

652
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 3: by shooting at a parked car a couple kissing on

653
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 3: their first date. Stacey Moskowitz and Robert Violente, both twenty,

654
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 3: both were shot in the head. Stacy lived, Robert did not.

655
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:21,080
Speaker 3: In August, Patty Smith entered the Record Plant to begin

656
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 3: work on her new album. That same week, police acting

657
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 3: on a tip interviewed a chubby twenty something postal worker

658
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 3: up in Yonkers named David Berkowitz. The following day, Berkowitz

659
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 3: was arrested. The Son of Sam manhunt had ended. New

660
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 3: York breathed a sigh of relief. Patti Smith kept her

661
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 3: head down and worked, still hunting for a hit, a

662
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:55,479
Speaker 3: song Robert Maplethorpe could dance to. On September twenty seventh,

663
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 3: Jimmy Iavin, who was also now producing Patty's new album,

664
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:03,920
Speaker 3: Springsteen's demo of Because the Night, into the studio for Patty.

665
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 3: Patty heard something in the song that Bruce hadn't not

666
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:13,319
Speaker 3: just defiance, but again reclamation. She channeled it all into

667
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 3: verse lyrics, Come on now, try and understand the way

668
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:21,800
Speaker 3: I feel when I'm in your hands, take my hand,

669
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:26,360
Speaker 3: come undercover. They can't hurt you now, can't hurt you now,

670
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 3: can't hurt you now, because the Knight belongs to lovers

671
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:36,920
Speaker 3: once more, and now the son of Sam was behind bars,

672
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,280
Speaker 3: and young couples in New York were once again free

673
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 3: to frolic. Because The Night was a massive smash. Patti

674
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 3: Smith had her hit, and Robert Maplethorpe had a song

675
00:48:50,120 --> 00:49:19,040
Speaker 3: you could dance to. Now Patty Smith was more than

676
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:23,640
Speaker 3: just an artist. For a minute, it seemed Patty Smith

677
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 3: was a pop star. Because The Night was Patty Smith's

678
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:32,040
Speaker 3: commercial breakthrough. It was a top forty hit, top five

679
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:36,600
Speaker 3: in the UK Easter. The album that the single supported

680
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 3: sold better than Patty's previous two albums combined. But pop

681
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:45,839
Speaker 3: stardom was never her goal being an artist was. An

682
00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:50,880
Speaker 3: artist need fuel in inspiration, and sometimes the only source

683
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 3: for them is love. So naturally, while at the top

684
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:58,319
Speaker 3: of her game, Patty Smith walked away from the game.

685
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:02,359
Speaker 3: She fell in love with another artist, another guitarist, this

686
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:06,400
Speaker 3: one Fred Sonic Smith from the proto punk anarchists and

687
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:11,439
Speaker 3: Motor City Legends the MC five. In nineteen seventy nine,

688
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 3: Patty moved to Detroit to marry Fred and traded a

689
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:19,359
Speaker 3: quote unquote career for fulfillment, the kind of fulfillment that

690
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:23,520
Speaker 3: only creating a family can bring. But soon enough, New

691
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:28,080
Speaker 3: York City would come calling again with some very bad news.

692
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 3: By the late eighties, Patti Smith's best friend, the first

693
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:35,920
Speaker 3: great love of her life, her creative confidant, her literal

694
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:39,040
Speaker 3: and figurative partner in crime. During those formative years in

695
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:42,719
Speaker 3: New York, Robert Maplethorpe, after having become one of the

696
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:46,720
Speaker 3: most successful photographers on the planet, was dying from AIDS

697
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:53,000
Speaker 3: related complications. On his deathbed, Robert asked Patty appointed question,

698
00:50:54,160 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 3: did art get us? Perhaps Art took Robert, but it

699
00:50:59,680 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 3: didn't take fred sonicsmith heart failure did Patty's other great love.

700
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:09,479
Speaker 3: Fred Smith died in nineteen ninety four, five years after

701
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:13,520
Speaker 3: Robert Maplethorpe, and Patty did what all great artists do

702
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 3: to process grief. She worked, She made new music, went

703
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:21,640
Speaker 3: on tour with Bob Dylan, moved back to New York City,

704
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:26,720
Speaker 3: and she wrote prodigiously, publishing books of poetry, books about

705
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:29,960
Speaker 3: her obsession with the works of Warhol, books of drawings,

706
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 3: of photography, a collection of song lyrics, all to critical acclaim,

707
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:39,840
Speaker 3: and in twenty ten she released Just Kids, a personal

708
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:42,400
Speaker 3: memoir of her early life in her time in New

709
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:46,239
Speaker 3: York City with Robert Maplethorpe, and later that year, Just

710
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:49,880
Speaker 3: Kids won the National Book Award for non Fiction, one

711
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:54,600
Speaker 3: of the most prestigious literary honors in the world. In

712
00:51:54,600 --> 00:51:59,640
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, Patty released a second memoir, M Train, which

713
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:03,320
Speaker 3: focused more on her present life and the unconventional ways

714
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 3: in which she'd pursued making art and the irredeemable loss

715
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 3: she felt after the death of her husband Fred. M

716
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 3: Train was a national bestseller, and Patty followed it up

717
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:18,840
Speaker 3: with four more titles, including the recent Bread of Angels

718
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:22,960
Speaker 3: another memoir. Each book was released to more critical praise

719
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:27,239
Speaker 3: and numerous awards and nominations Grammys, a Pen Award, the

720
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:33,359
Speaker 3: Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, honorary doctorates from prestigious universities. It's

721
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:36,320
Speaker 3: now twenty twenty six, and it's clear that Patti Smith

722
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:39,560
Speaker 3: is still living a life that few artists get to live.

723
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:44,759
Speaker 3: She is, as I mentioned earlier, the high priestess of art.

724
00:52:45,239 --> 00:52:50,160
Speaker 3: She has enjoyed both critical and commercial success, artistic credibility

725
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:52,920
Speaker 3: in the underground, and doors that fly open for her

726
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:59,280
Speaker 3: at elite cultural institutions. Most importantly, she survived. She's seventy

727
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 3: nine years old and has lived to harvest the fruits

728
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 3: of her artistic labor, no small feat. Most artists of

729
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:11,000
Speaker 3: consequence succumbed to the ever present danger that surrounds them.

730
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:14,720
Speaker 3: Jean Janay and William S. Burrows lived to be seventy

731
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:19,320
Speaker 3: five and eighty three, respectively, but Rimbaud died at thirty seven,

732
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:24,800
Speaker 3: Pollock at forty four, Coltrane at forty, Brian Jones twenty seven,

733
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:27,680
Speaker 3: and too many other artists to name, all of whom

734
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:32,279
Speaker 3: died too young. And of course there was Robert Maplethorpe,

735
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:38,320
Speaker 3: who asked, did Art get us dead at just forty two?

736
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:43,400
Speaker 3: Perhaps the reason Patty Smith survived is something that she

737
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 3: revealed in Mtrain. When you read it, you can't help

738
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:49,640
Speaker 3: but feel Patty writing at times in a sort of

739
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:54,720
Speaker 3: gumshoe detective way, channeling her inner Mickey Spellane, her inner

740
00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:59,240
Speaker 3: Raymond Chandler. It's not full on Philip Marlowe. It's subtle.

741
00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:03,560
Speaker 3: But what isn't subtle is Patty's love of detective fiction,

742
00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:08,280
Speaker 3: both on the page and on screen. In a word,

743
00:54:08,800 --> 00:54:14,200
Speaker 3: Patty Smith is crime obsessed. Law and Order, The Girl

744
00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:20,400
Speaker 3: with the Dragon Tattoo, Midsummer Murders, Sherlock Holmes, Luther, CSI, Miami,

745
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:24,440
Speaker 3: The Killing. Patti Smith reveals an m Train that she

746
00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:27,799
Speaker 3: is so obsessed with some of these crime series that

747
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:31,239
Speaker 3: she will sometimes rearrange her travel schedule in order to

748
00:54:31,280 --> 00:54:34,480
Speaker 3: catch various shows when they air on TV in different countries.

749
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:38,160
Speaker 3: Her obsession with the show The Killing was so intense

750
00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:40,719
Speaker 3: that she wrote to the producers when it was canceled

751
00:54:40,760 --> 00:54:44,640
Speaker 3: to mourn the loss. The producers responded by giving Patty

752
00:54:44,640 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 3: a cameo on one of the series' last episodes, but

753
00:54:50,640 --> 00:54:54,720
Speaker 3: Patti Smith's obsession with TV crime shows. I don't believe

754
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:58,399
Speaker 3: that it's just folly. I believe that it comes from

755
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:02,279
Speaker 3: Patty's extensive expos to actual crime throughout the course of

756
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:07,440
Speaker 3: her life. The Lindbergh Baby, Charles Manson, The Son of Sam.

757
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:12,359
Speaker 3: These true crime stories were formative for Patty Smith, as

758
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 3: was the ever present danger of New York City in

759
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:19,239
Speaker 3: the nineteen sixties and seventies. The blood splattered walls of

760
00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:22,400
Speaker 3: her first apartment, the body outlined in chalk on the

761
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:25,960
Speaker 3: street outside Roberts, the dancer plunging to her death from

762
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:29,000
Speaker 3: the top of the Chelsea, her friend William S Burrows,

763
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:31,560
Speaker 3: who shot and killed his wife and got away with it.

764
00:55:32,040 --> 00:55:36,360
Speaker 3: Jim Carroll's deadly addiction to heroin, Robert Maplethorpe's forty Second

765
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 3: Street Hustling. Not to mention the addiction, violence, and deadly

766
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:44,759
Speaker 3: recklessness that accompanies most artists lives. Patty Smith was a

767
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 3: hair's breath from all of it, and she learned from

768
00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:51,719
Speaker 3: it all, learned from the crime, learned how not to

769
00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:55,200
Speaker 3: succumb to the danger of it, but instead to use

770
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 3: it as creative fuel. Patty Smith survived to become that

771
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:04,040
Speaker 3: rare type of artists that she became because I believe

772
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:08,240
Speaker 3: Patti Smith knew what all crime fiction and true crime

773
00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:12,839
Speaker 3: fans know, and that's how to stay safe, to be

774
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:18,320
Speaker 3: vigilant aware, and like all great artists, to trust her intuition,

775
00:56:19,040 --> 00:56:22,840
Speaker 3: to believe in that calling, because the knight doesn't just

776
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:28,680
Speaker 3: belong to lovers, it belongs to the criminals. I'm Jake

777
00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:50,680
Speaker 3: Brennan in this is Disgraceland. All right, guys, you've not

778
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:53,759
Speaker 3: heard the Patti Smith episode of the disgrace Slam podcast.

779
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:56,240
Speaker 3: The question I want to ask you all is which

780
00:56:56,400 --> 00:57:00,800
Speaker 3: musician's memoir or autobiography would you recommend? Get your answers

781
00:57:00,800 --> 00:57:03,200
Speaker 3: in via voicemail and text to six one seven nine

782
00:57:03,200 --> 00:57:05,319
Speaker 3: oh six six six three eight, or hit me on

783
00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:09,320
Speaker 3: the socials at disgracelampod in the comments. Here comes some credits.

784
00:57:10,080 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 3: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in

785
00:57:13,160 --> 00:57:17,800
Speaker 3: partnership with Double Elvis, the Exactly Right Network in iHeart Podcasts.

786
00:57:18,360 --> 00:57:20,680
Speaker 3: Credits for this episode can be found on the show

787
00:57:20,680 --> 00:57:24,440
Speaker 3: notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as

788
00:57:24,440 --> 00:57:27,800
Speaker 3: a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show.

789
00:57:27,880 --> 00:57:30,560
Speaker 3: We really appreciate it, and if not, you can become

790
00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:34,000
Speaker 3: a member right now by going to disgracelampod dot com

791
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:38,280
Speaker 3: slash Membership members can listen to every episode of disgracelan

792
00:57:38,520 --> 00:57:41,120
Speaker 3: ad free, rate and review the show, and follow us

793
00:57:41,160 --> 00:57:45,160
Speaker 3: on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook at disgracelampod and on

794
00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:50,400
Speaker 3: YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at Disgracelandpod, rock A Rolla,

795
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:55,920
Speaker 3: he the Mann