"I haven't fucked much with the past, but I've fucked plenty with the future." - Patti Smith

I always kind of wondered about her and I am embarrassed that I know absolutely nothing other than she was a formative force in music and off the rails for most of her career. Looked up her rant which was on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack today. I didn't realize that it was actually a truncation of something she did called Babelogue.

"I haven't fucked much with the past, but I've fucked plenty with the future. Over the skin of silk are scars from the splinters of stations and walls I've caressed. A stage is like each bolt of wood, like a log of Helen, is my pleasure. I would measure the success of a night by the way by the way by the amount of piss and seed I could exude over the columns that nestled the P.A. Some nights I'd surprise everybody by skipping off with a skirt of green net sewed over with flat metallic circles which dazzled and flashed. The lights were violet and white. I had an ornamental veil, but I couldn't bear to use it. When my hair was cropped, I craved covering, but now my hair itself is a veil, and the scalp inside is a scalp of a crazy and sleepy Comanche lies beneath this netting of the skin. I wake up. I am lying peacefully I am lying peacefully and my knees are open to the sun. I desire him, and he is absolutely ready to seize me. In heart I am a Moslem; in heart I am an American; in heart I am Moslem, in heart I'm an American artist, and I have no guilt. I seek pleasure. I seek the nerves under your skin. The narrow archway; the layers; the scroll of ancient lettuce. We worship the flaw, the belly, the belly, the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore. He spared the child and spoiled the rod. I have not sold myself to God."

You can listen to it here, but close your eyes cuz someone spliced photos of their friends into a video around it.... kind of lame, but this is the only mainstream outlet that I can find for it. *** Not work safe for obvious reasons *** Sounds like that night around 1978 was pretty out of control. I was 5 though, so I probably wouldn't have been allowed to go.

I can't really find out what the "Log of Helen" is. I found it in a book from 1929 called Magnificent Obsession, and they were actually talking about a log of Helen (as in a historical list of sequential events). It might be Helen of Troy, but it sounds biblical somehow. I can't seem to find in a search against 5 different versions, so maybe not. Gotta get on to my fairly critical pursuit of reading that thing. Reading the God Delusion at the same time was a bit unfair to the project though.

Anyways... Go Patti Smith... I like people who are out there these days.