December 30th
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATTI SMITH!

Like some Heroine, you remain strong and defiant. You honestly believe Rock and Roll can change the world for the better, but it takes more than flashing peace signs and crowing useless platitudes  to achieve unity. Like a nourishing matriarch, you provide solace and comfort to the Rock & Roll Niggers of the world. You assure us the we CAN move forward, but only when we continue to take on an establishment of entertainment corporations and wanna be impresarios who exploit the vulnerable. Outside of society is where you'll find me, with artists, poets and madmen; the brilliant, broken and disenfranchised who shred their souls to bring beauty and substance to the world, only to be vilified as abnormal, indigent, unpleasant eccentrics.

Patti, you've taught me that if our songs are our children, as so many have said, then I must defend mine with the ferocity of Ursula, The Mother Bear. You've taught me that art is the truncheon with which we will ultimately smash the state. You've taught me that tilting at a few windmills isn't as futile as it would seem. Most importantly, you remind me that art, music, 
ROCK & ROLL is indeed a noble vocation, suffering for art is not a cliche', and when music and art can teach true understanding, compassion and acceptance, only then will it change the world.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!