Patti Smith Rocks Rimbaud, Injures Elbow
Aging punk poet Patti Smith nearly tumbled off London's Shepherd's Bush Empire stage recently, injuring her elbow. She eventually found "balance" and laughed it off, according to NME.
Smith, 60, was in the capital performing one of her Rock N Rimbaud gigs, dedicated to the poet Arthur Rimbaud, when, during a fiery encore of 'Rock N Roll Nigger', she tripped on a speaker and fell flat on her face, cutting her elbow.
Despite not getting up for a few agonising seconds, the singer finally rose to loud cheers, humorously following the fall with a speech about "not losing your balance" in life.
She then gave the speaker a kick in retaliation.
"I'm not even fucking embarrassed because I've done far worse," Smith laughed. "May [guitars] be the only weapons we use, may tripping up be the only humiliations we suffer, and may these [pointing to her scuffed elbow] be the only battle scars."
Hey Culture Czar--re: Patti Smith and "R&R Nigger"
What with Imus' return and Nas' new CD entitled "Nigger," our smart, witty, funny, wacky, serious vid call "Nappy Headed Hos" (Wonkette's "Gratuitous Video of the Day," 10 .16 .07) is worth a Culture Czar look. Check us out at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zHsu64YdCk. Here's more:
NAPPY HEADED HOS
No mere novelty song or hip hop pastiche, accident of birth’s “Nappy Headed Hos” confronts black and white establishment elites, mainstream media and hip hop culture with a humorous, rollicking, (ill)literate bitchslap at many of the knee jerk, hypocritical and reactionary takes on the Imus nappy-headed-ho controversy. With nods to influences as diverse as Snoop Dogg (“I’m a mutt . . .”), Hawaii Five-O, Miles Davis, Devo, John Lennon, and the Grateful Dead, “Nappy Headed Hos” has a high time undermining MSM pieties with its hip hop braggadocio (“Maker’s at twelve, dank from Humboldt”), exaggerated outrage over a two-letter word (“Can’t say HO-meric/get a tongue episiotomy”) and sly asides aimed at the chattering class (MSNBC “yokel” Joe Scarborough, PBS’s Gwen “Ifill tower,” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Al “slick trick” Sharpton).
And that’s just the song itself. The video goes even further with its own brand of whack wit and wisdom featuring lampoons of talking heads (Tim Russert , Frank Rich and James Carville) and out-of-left-field guest appearances. Was that Bond Girl Pussy Galore? Was that Freddie
Prinze . . . senior? Entourage’s Kevin Dillon? Paulie Walnuts?!?!? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes! (And what the hell is Yoko Ono doing here?). Throw all this in the blender and you have a whole new musical genre: Devogangstafunkadelica.
“A most truthy music video,” sez Wonkette.com of their “Gratuitous Video of the Day.” Word! Sickness!! Yeah!!! “Nappy Headed Hos” rocks it unlike anything you’ll hear or see this year.
accident of birth is Trickster Fox and JES. Fox is the producer and director of the acclaimed, award-winning documentary, "Dreadheads"; JES is a musician, producer and engineer. They have a 3-song EP (Eclectic Player) coming out in November, 2007. They live nappily in tha A-T-L.