"The one cool thing about getting successful in rock and roll is keeping all the traditional joys about it," Patti Smith said recently. "I ain't gonna pretend that I don't get a kick out of it...I mean it's so excitin' that somebody would write up what I wear, y'know? It's what I used to live for...to look in magazines and see all those pictures and see 'This is this stage and this is that stage'. 1 mean even in my early twenties, even now I want to see what's Mick wearin', what's John Lennon wearin'...The Beatles went through some great clothing phases. I still have my George Harrison — what was that movie? Magical Mystery Tour? Oh, it's my favorite outfit still; orange pants, this old gray suit jacket.. .and a big tie. I wear it sometimes."

"I've just been bombin' through Bendel's," Patti said as she rushed into her manager's office. Looking the perfect street urchin, Paris, 1910 style. She had on: Black wool cap, white tshirt, black sweater, black velvet jacket, skintight blue jeans, blue-green wool leg warmers, striped ^Peruvian wool socks, black ballet slippers. Funny, the large magnum of Dom Perignon she was holding didn't look at all out of place. "I really love presents," she emphasized , "like this [points to a bracelet] motorcycle chain some kid gave me. I love that stuff. I get letters from kids, one maniac kid has been sending me

PATTI WEARS:

Lion of Judah t-shirt that reads: "Love Rastafaria — And live" Ivan Krai's Milwaukee Braves red and black zippered jacket Black Johnny two-straps Capezio ballet slippers (size 7 1/2) Wildly colored striped Peruvian allwool socks Moroccan scarves (Keith Richards has one, Patti gave one to Dylan) Conservative black suit jacket and trousers Bob Marley button Mint green cashmere v-neck sweater "Cult figure" t-shirt Green khaki army surplus pants tied at the ankles Grey cashmere pullover Black supporthose A Fender DuoSonic, Schaller heads, maple neck, original pickups...(guitar). Richard Sohl's black 100% cashmere coat.

'Season in Hell' illuminations, one page a day. From some weird place in New York...every single day without I fail. One kid wrote, 'You need energy?, 2 here it is'...and he wrote...'WHO" OSH!, I'm breathing on this paper.' Or he'll write, i blew air and energy into this envelope, pull it in as you open it up.'

Bod Gruen

"I like getting more money and buying more clothes, but I never can find anything I like.. .1 can't sew and I never can find a seamstress...Today I went into Bendel's, all I wanted was just something to wear...one nice thing. You know I love cloth, I'm such a cloth fetishist. Silks, cottons, I can't stand anything polyester, I won't wear it. I was bombing through Bendel's just touching, feeling, I'm worse than a woman in a grocery store.

"I'm a girl, you know. All that stuff about being beyond gender...that's great for art, but when it comes to presents...," she fondles the Dom Perignon.

"I read some of the stuff that's written about me," Patti said, "but I think people like to hear the human side. The rest is for school. I mean they can put books out about that stuff, if someone wants to analyze it. When they start writin' that stuff, I don't even know what they're talkin' about. I just look to see if they had what I had on, or if the pictures are good..."

I tell her she's in Vogue: "Yeah, I know, because I have always run out and bought Vogue the minute it's hit the newsstands, I have for twelve years. But I won't be satisfied until they give me a whole spread." "I felt so good yesterday," she tells me over the phone from Boston, "I was lookin' at the cashmere sweaters at this store, and the man was real snotty and didn't want me to look at them. So I said, 'Listen, just give me these two — a green one and a black one, don't even bother to wrap them.. .just put them in a paper bag.' And I turned over all my money, I just gave him a hundred dollars. I felt so good. Then I had to walk home.

"When I have a lot of money I want a mink jacket. Mink, you know, 'cause it's status. That's all, a dark mink jacket, lots of Rastafarian t-shirts, and twelve pairs of custom made pants."

TURN TO PAGE 70.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 53.

In Boston Patti felt a large electric shock go through her body while doing her guitar solo on "My Generation." "I really thought that this was it, it was over," she said afterwards, "I thought I was dying. I was real steady and calm, but it really was heavy. I think it was this rubber band that saved me," she pointed to a rubber band on her wrist. "But I don't understand how it got there, I never wear rubber bands..."

(May I add here that having traveled around to various cities to see Patti perform, I have been making notes on New Fashions, and I am literally ASTOUNDED at the numbers of green nylon lined with orange nylon hooded parkas — trimmed in fur — that seem to be SWEEPING the country. Who knew that Paul Simon was so far ahead of the times on his Bridge Over Troubled Water LP cover??)

"I'm trying to move in a way that I never did before," she says, "dancing ...the discovery of it is so exciting that that's all I've been thinking about lately. Language...well, it doesn't like you messin' around with your body much. But now, I feel like I'm my own tool.

"I saw the Stones twice this summer and one night Mick was so superb, he was like a human sacrifice.. .he was just like a bird, the way he improvises with his body. He was doing all this dancing, putting his hands together as if in prayer, he was like some holy guy, a rock and roll holy man. It really inspired me. Then, two nights later he seemed so wiped out, he was dragging around, so self-concious and you could tell he didn't like his outfit...his laces kept failin'.. .1 was just yelling, even though I knew he couldn't hear me, 'Mick, it doesn't matter, we love you'...I know how he must have felt. But the only thing he shouldn't do onstage is question."

Onstage, My Father's Place, Roslyn, Long Island: "There have been a few great art forms throughout history," Patti tells the audience. "Housecleaning... sculpture... rock and roll." Then, "Listen, I talk a lot of crap up here, if you don't like it, talk amongst ya."

Onstage, Jazz Workshop, Boston: "Oh, enough Rimbaud already. That was last year. Really, it's like reading about an old boyfriend..."