Because the Night.

So after several martinis at Trulucks, I made my way over to the Miami Book Fair just in time to see Patti Smith.

At the time the punk rock scene was going on, in NYC in the 70s, I didn't pay much attention to it. Like a fool, my musical tastes in high school were for the over produced, pretentious stuff like Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer.

A few of my HS mates would take the LIRR to NYC, and return with tales of CBGBs, and groups like the Ramones. My group stayed at the Nassau Collisseum, and Jones Beach Theatre, and thought groups like Crosby Stills and Nash (already warmed over and sappy by the late 70s) were the coolest.

When I got to the U I started to listen to punk. I remember parties in Building 22 where we'd dance and slap the low ceilings to "Sheena is (stop) a Punk Rocker."

I had a crush on Chrissie Hynde, but I listened to Patti Smith. And I did it again last night.

The auditorium was packed. She came on stage, looking as elegant as if she came off a 3 day drunk and got dressed in the Metrorail bathroom. Her hair was gray and stringy. She started to read her book, in her NJ accent, and the audience was taken to 1975, and her room with her lover Robert Mapplethorpe at the Chelsea Hotel.

She read, and interspersed her words with some singing on her guitar. The crowd, which ranged from my age on down to kids in their teens, was transfixed. She's a fine teller of tales. She's self deprecating but strong.

During a break, when she took questions, a simpering professor type, clearly intent on showing off his intelligence (I always think of the great Marshall Mcluen scene in "Annie Hall," asked her about an essay where the writer talked about Mapplethorpe's death. "What are you trying to say? Spit it out.!" The wussy professor slinked away. It was clear Patti Smith had kicked more than a few asses in her day...

Someone asked her about her best known song "Because the Night," which she co wrote with Bruce Springsteen. She said she'd explain later --and boy did she!

She talked about waiting on the phone for a long distance call from her then boyfriend that never came. She brought us back to the 70s, when one planned a long distance call, because of the expense.

While waiting, she picked up a tape that Springsteen's producer Jimmy Iovine had given her, and she thought it was magnificent, even with the mumbling from her fellow Jersey-ite. She added to the lyrics, and a classic was born.

At the end of the night, she picked up her guitar and played it and sang it. At the beginning of her talk, audience members had each jumped up and recited lines from a Rimbaud poem, in honor of Patti's favorite poet.

Now, she sang, and the audience sang those powerful words back at her "Try to understant, how I feel when I'm in your command."

It was as if the 900 folks there all remembered the passion of young lust and love, and got it, all at the same time. (Clearly, the waning effect of my martinis didn't hurt in my case).

At the last shouted lyrics "Because the night belongs to love!" the audience erupted. IT was something to behold.

Mitch Kaplan, my local hero, took the stage --obviously moved and spent. He looked like he needed a cigarette. He said that he'd seen a lot in 27 years of the Book Fair, but never had a night quite like that one.

We filed out, hopped the People Mover, and headed for the suburbs, still in the spell of a 63 year old skinny, powerful, not the least bit pretty woman with quite a tale to share.