what I read last week
just kids, acid for the children
Good evening!
Last week, I read two memoirs by people who are undeniably cooler than I am: Just Kids by Patti Smith and Acid for the Children by Flea (the bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers). Let’s get into it.
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Just Kids by Patti Smith
Just Kids is Patti Smith’s memoir about her long-term relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
Overview: Just Kids opens in 1989 with Smith learning that Mapplethorpe, her best friend, creative collaborator, and ex-lover, died after battling AIDS.
Smith then takes the reader back to her childhood and chronologically traces her life and career, focusing primarily on her time in New York in the 1960s and 1970s. Smith was born in 1946 in Chicago. Her family later moved to Germantown, Pennsylvania, and later to southern New Jersey. Smith moved to New York for a fresh start after getting pregnant at age 19 and putting her child up for adoption (“I was humbled by nature,” she writes).
Smith and Mapplethorpe met in the summer of 1967 at a friend’s apartment when they were both 21 years old. Two chance meetings later, they were inseparable. “As if it was the most natural thing in the world we stayed together, not leaving each other's side save to go to work,” she explains. “Nothing was spoken, it was just mutually understood.”
Smith chronicles their lives as struggling artists in New York. They lived in a garret in Clinton Hill and had to choose between food (Smith’s specialty was lettuce soup made with bouillon) and art supplies. At one point, two tourists saw Smith and Mapplethorpe in Washington Square Park. They debated taking their picture; the woman thought they looked like artists. “They’re just kids,” the man said.
They later moved into Dylan Thomas’s old room at the Chelsea Hotel. These were the golden days of the New York art scene. Smith describes meeting Salvador Dalí at the Chelsea Hotel, speaking with Allen Ginsburg, and talking to Jimi Hendrix outside of a recording studio.
Smith and Mapplethorpe were artistic soul mates and had a long-term romantic relationship, but they eventually broke up. After they broke up, Mapplethorpe began dating men and moved to San Francisco. Smith dated playwright Sam Shepard and Blue Öyster Cult band member Allen Lanier. However, the two remained close. After experimenting with a number of media, including collage, Mapplethorpe committed himself to photography. Smith wrote poetry and eventually turned into a punk rock singer. Following the success of her 1978 single, “Because the Night,” Mapplethorpe told her: “Patti, you got famous before me.”
Opinion: Just Kids is A BOOK. It’s one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read. Smith is a poet, and you see that in her rhythmic prose. She describes her relationship with Mapplethorpe with a lot of heart and compassion, which gives this memoir a lot of depth.
Just Kids is also set during the golden age of the New York art scene. There is a lot of name-dropping in Just Kids, but they are great names! I would definitely consider this period as my Midnight in Paris time travel wish, although I’m not sure I could personally stomach the starving-artist lifestyle (Smith and Mapplethorpe had to clean out black mold in their Clinton Hill loft).
Music is a big part of Just Kids, and I enjoyed listening to Patti Smith’s playlist about songs that inspired her during this period:
I have no real criticisms of Just Kids. However, I think some people might not like Smith’s poetic prose, as she has a distinct writing style. Others might not be interested in this time period or the art world.
Overall: For me, Just Kids is an all-time memoir. If you haven’t read this and are even slightly interested in the 1960s-1970s art world, you should read it.
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Memoir (Art World; Grief)
Notable prizes/book clubs/lists: National Book Award Winner (2010)
Page count: 262 pages
Audio: 9 hr 50 min
Acid for the Children by Flea
Acid for the Children is a memoir by Flea, the bassist and a founding member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The book covers Flea’s early life and ends just before the Red Hot Chili Peppers were formed. Most of the book centers on Flea’s formative years as a teenager in Los Angeles.
Overview: Flea was born Michael Balzary in Australia. His family moved to Rye, New York. His parents later divorced, and his father returned to Australia. His mother remarried a struggling jazz musician, Walter, who introduced Flea to the music world. Flea’s mother moved their family to Los Angeles.
Flea had a challenging childhood: “I was raised in a very violent, alcoholic childhood.” When Flea was trick-or-treating at age thirteen, news spread that a killer was firing his gun in the street. Flea returned home to find his stepfather with blood over his body. “He was the lunatic they were all talking about,” Flea writes.
Flea was exposed to drugs at an early age. He smoked weed at thirteen and did acid, PCP, and other drugs all before age fifteen. As a teenager, Flea became best friends with Anthony Kiedis, who became the lead vocalist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Opinion: I picked up Acid for the Children after reading Just Kids. I like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but I am not a die-hard fan of the band. I mainly read this because Patti Smith wrote the foreword to Flea’s memoir. This one pleasantly surprised me. Flea writes openly and honestly about his life and captures anxiety well:
I’ve often felt separate from other human beings. I have my moments of togetherness with others; I love all sentient beings with my heart and am wildly fortunate to have friends I can talk to, share joy and despair with; we loyally have each other’s back. I wordlessly communicate with other musicians, sometimes plumbing great depths. But I’m awkward with other people, sometimes even my closest friends. My mind wanders, seeing others hold hands in a circle, from my separate place. My earliest memories are rooted in an underlying sense that something’s wrong with me, that everyone else is clued into a group consciousness from which I’m excluded. Like something in me is broken. As time passes I become more comfortable with this strange sense of being apart, but it never leaves, and on occasion, I go through phases of intense and debilitating anxiety. Gnarly fucking panic attacks. Perhaps it is a form of self-loathing, that I’m often unable to find comfort in community. Am I the only one who’s fucked up like this? Can I get a witness?
He writes in short, vignette-like chapters, jumping from anecdote to anecdote. At times, this writing style reads somewhat choppy, but I personally enjoyed the rhythm to it. The stories are also entertaining and larger-than-life. At one point, I was convinced he had jumped to his twenties, but he was still recounting his teenage years. This memoir is somewhat dark, but Flea finds lightness here.
Overall: Acid for the Children might not be a must-read, but it’s an excellent celebrity memoir about a musician’s formative years.
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Memoir
Page count: 390 pages
Audio: 9 hours 4 minutes
consumed 🎬🎧🗞️→
I sometimes tell myself that my style choices are “so Diane Keaton.” This SNL skit made me laugh.
I’m roadtripping across the country in a few weeks since I’m moving. The stop I’m most excited for is—somewhat unexpectedly—South Dakota!
cooked 🍳→
Oooooh just kids is a must read!