Patti Smith Does Debby (Boone)

A friend writes: “This is so tender, sincere, guileless. Does this happen in 2008 without a wink of irony?” Short answer, no. Let’s take it bit by bit.

0:00. So, I used to watch “Kids Are People Too” (KAPT), even though I considered the title an insult. I was a pretty obnoxious “children’s rights activist” in the ’70s, so the name of the show was offensive: too obvious to state. “Of course we’re people, what else would we be, animals? Rocks?” I would say. Now I have reverted to believing they should be seen and not heard. Kids today aren’t as interesting as I was, though.

[There is close to nothing about KAPT on the Web. A few YouTube videos, and some practically empty shells at sites like TVGuide.com, TV.com, etc. It ran from 1978 to 1982, apparently. That tracks. I remember one episode where they featured two boys with that ’70s disease of super-rapid aging. They were two little boys that looked like they were 100 years old.]

Yet even though I watched, I don’t remember this host at all (apparently his non-ironic name is Michael YOUNG), whose pants leave nothing to the imagination, but whose banter with Patti does.

The washed-out, caramel color of the videotape this clip was transferred from only adds to the distancing effect, the eeriness.

0:19. “Everybody says ‘Patti Smith, punk rock.’” “Who? Who said it?” These kids in the audience are the same age I am, give or take a few years, and I certainly have no memory of knowing about punk rock when I was 9 years old, even though that was around its peak (the Sex Pistols broke up in ’78, for instance). But the kids in this audience seem to know who Patti Smith is, and they burst into spontaneous applause at the mention of Mick Jagger. Which is surprising, somehow. KC and the Sunshine Band, I would expect. But the Stones? Again, these kids are too young.

0:36. The little hand gesture while she says “it changes minute-to-minute.” I think she’s “on” something. I read that Patti was voted “Class Clown” in high school, which seems to belie her haunting Mapplethorpe imagery from the ’70s and the disturbing tone of many of her lyrics (e.g., the male-male rape scene that opens “Land” on the album “Horses.”) So, transpose the androgyne who sings about one boy pressing another boy against the “locka” and violating him, onto a soundstage full of happily screaming children, and voila, you have this clip, with its full quill of cognitive-dissonance arrows.

1:18. Her South Jersey accent is beyond intense, but so are the kids’ Jersey accents. Where was this filmed, Passaic?

Will you answer some questions? He asks. “I’m ready,” she says, like it’s a big deal. I think the audience is 99% girls, and all of the question-askers are girls. Which is interesting.

The mention of Mick Jagger causes PS to imitate his swagger and facial expression.

1:36. Kim Vaccaro asks where PS was born. “Chicago, Illinoise, Planet Earth.” Okay, then.

1:39. So she lived in Detroit (St. Clair Shores, to be exact) by this time, with her husband Fred “Sonic” Smith of the MC5, because she answers as much to the host of KAPT. Proudly, with no explanation. Love.

2:12. What’s with the third girl (Melissa) saying, “What made you decide to take a music career?” Take a career? That’s such an old-fashioned turn of phrase. But this was 30 years ago. Ouch.

She entered into the “field” of rock ‘n’ roll? Hahaha.

2:30. She talks about giving rock ‘n’ roll back to the kids, “Myself included.” Her first child was not to be born till three years later. (She took a vacation from music to raise a family in suburban Detroit in the ’80s. I want to know so much more about this. I remember it vaguely; she blended in, I think, and no one paid her any attention there.)

2:56. I cannot believe the exaggerated clamoring to ask questions. Beatlemania, wtf. Baby dyke asks who her favorite singer is. “Maria Callas and Mick Jagger”? And they applaud again, this time inadvertently for Maria Callas. As though they know who that is.

3:20. As soon as she prefaces her song choice by saying “I know that’s a weird choice for me, but I like that song…” she strips any possibility for irony away with turpentine. So nonpatronizing — “tender, sincere, guileless” — with her shout-out to the Year of the Child.

3:34. She’s so excited to sing “You Light Up My Life,” and she’s not even kidding.

3:42. Michael YOUNG announces that they got the composer, your boyfriend, Joe Brooks… he not only composed the song “You Light Up My Life,” (YLUML) he wrote, directed, and produced the unwatchable 1977 movie of the same title. Then his résumé gets sketchy, threadbare. I wonder what the story is there. Maybe free-basing lit up his life… Who knows. He’s 70 now.

The musical number is such a talent-show-level performance, it’s … I … She stumbles over to the piano, and the composer of “YLUML” f*cking just hands her the mic, like, “Here you go!”

She sings with her eyes closed like a shy kid would.

It’s hard to understate how ubiquitous this song was when it came out, circa 1977. Star Debbie Boone and her father, Pat Boone, are right-wing nuts. I can’t remember what the movie was about. Somebody was handicapped or non-Christian or something.

4:52. You’ve got your bush-league psychedelic FX while she sings.

6:02. Then she forgets the last couple of lines… oh, wait. Joe is singing… is he filling in for her, or is she letting him take over on purpose?

6:36. She wraps up by shouting (unironically) the verse “You give me hope to carry on!” then it’s over and after awkward goodbyes with the host and the pianist, she waves and hesitates and just kind of walks offstage while Michael implores the viewers to stay tuned.

“Don’t go away because we have much more to come. We have Count Dracula and Adam Rich…”

To paraphrase “This Is Spinal Tap”: PUPPET SHOW AND PATTI SMITH.

LATER

In Royal Oak, MI, there used to be a clothing boutique, in the ’80s, called Patty Smith. The eponymous owner was a kind of funky hipster eccentric. I can remember reading at the time that Patti Smith successfully sued Patty Smith to remove their similarly-spelled name from the shop. It was kind of a scandal around Detroit. Like, who does this Patti Smith think she is? I’d have to do some research to see what the deal was. The more I think about it, Patti Smith WAS a fashion icon, so there were grounds. But it was one little shop in Royal Oak. Not a national brand or something.

EVEN LATER

I saw her perform at the big HMV (His Master’s Voice) on Walnut Street in Philly back in the late ’90s. She just rolled in and did a few numbers with a guitar right on the sales floor. I think it was in the middle of the Easy Listening section. As I usually do when I’m curious about someone, I locked eyes with her, but she stared me down within two seconds. Let’s face it, her eyes win. Spooky and wise, and they always, always were.

SUMMARY THOUGHT

She obviously did this children’s show because she wanted to. Why did she want to?

Read more SM SHRAKE at You Wanna Know What? and The Shrake-tionary.

TAGS: 1970s • Chicago • detroit • Kids Are People Too • New Jersey • Nostalgia • Patti Smith • punk rock • Robert Mapplethorpe • You Light Up My Life • YouTube