David Fewster

WHY PATTI SMITH AND I ARE NEVER SEEN

TOGETHER IN THE SAME ROOM

So, I was watching Conan O'Brien a few years back.

He announced Patti Smith would be the musical guest.

She would be singing a song from her new album.

I was so excited.

Not excited enough, however, to watch the insipid drivel

that is "The Late Show,"

so I turned down the sound until it was time

for Patti to come on.

Finally, there she was. She looked great!

Just like "Horses," only grayer and crustier,

but in a good way, like gray and crust

were the two coolest things in the universe.

I turned up the volume as the band started playing.

The first four words of the song were Patti groaning

"In my Blakean youth."

Wow!

57 years old, 30 years in show business,

and Patti can still hit you about the face and neck

with the Pretentious Stick

hard enough to make you bleed.

"In my Blakean youth..."

What the hell does that mean?

It doesn't mean a goddamn thing!

It doesn't mean a thing even if you just got done

reading the 800-page biography of William Blake

put out by Oxford Press.

Patti, give me something I can hold onto!

Like MC Billy C. Williams said,

"No ideas but in things."

Let me give you an example from MY youth.

I can remember when they invented 40-ouncers!

It was San Francisco, 1982.

Imagine a day where, if you wanted 

a single large container of beer,

the biggest you could get was a quart bottle.

It was all there was,

so we never worried about whether it was enough--

we just made do.

Still, there would be those times when,

having called in sick to work,

because, after all,

I was an Artist, not a drone,

I sat in the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park,

pen, paper, and brown paper bag

of Carling Black Label beer in hand,

and, just as inspiration was about to coalesce,

I found I was down to the very last sip.

What to do?

Nothing for it but to trudge back up to Haight Street

for a refill where, likely as not,

the Muse would flee before I could plunk down

the price of a Colt 45.

Another day wasted, another cruel reminder that

Time is the bane of the poet's existence.

So, imagine the glorious morning as I stroll

into the local Mom & Pop store--

there in the cooler, next to the Rainier Ale,

is this apparition--

Big as a golden silo--

"New! Olde English 800 in 40 oz. bottles."

As an introductory offer,

the new Uberbrew was scarcely more expensive

than its punier cousin.

It didn't take a genius to do the math--

8 extra ounces into 32 is

TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT MORE BEER

for only pennies extra.

Truly, Rimbaud himself could sail his Drunken Boat

in style with such a surfeit.

Still, advances cannot be made without some sacrifices--

the new bottle was more unwieldly.

The old quarts had a tapered neck,

perfect for throwing great distances end-over-end

when you were finished and exploding dramatically

by the monkey bars in the children's play area.

The new ones had to be clutched like a football,

good if you were John Elway,

but much less effective for regular folk.

Also, the 40s stuck far out of the pocket of your pea jacket,

so everyone knew what you were up to.

So what! It was San Francisco, 1982.

Nobody cared about alcoholics back then!

Yes, with that extra dollop of beer

at last I could paint my masterpiece.

I was Baudelaire, Verlaine, Jarry and Poe all rolled up in one.

I saw God! I fell asleep in parks.

I passed out in a lot of parks back then.

Let the rapper kids on MTV sing a song about that.

Oh wait, that's right, they can't--

they're not old enough to remember it!

Only you and I, Patti, were there

and we'll always have Paris,

only, for Christ's sake--

Stop dragging Dead Romantic Poets

into it.