{"id":20876,"date":"2014-01-16T16:18:15","date_gmt":"2014-01-16T21:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=20876"},"modified":"2014-01-16T22:25:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-17T03:25:00","slug":"shaman-or-sham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/shaman-or-sham\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaman or Sham?"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/37w96lUcjmY?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe>\n<p>I&#8217;ve come to love <strong>Patti Smith<\/strong>&#8216;s persona way more than her music, which I do like. She strikes me as a fellow <a title=\"Peace Warrior\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/rebuilding-team-hippie-for-the-modern-ag\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Peace Warrior<\/strong><\/a>, a let-it-hang-loose freak in the best sense of the term. I usually get a charge out of people who sincerely let their freak flag fly, especially if I don&#8217;t have to smell them. I still get chills thinking about passages in Smith&#8217;s memoir, <em>Just Kids<\/em>, or the energy she projected when I saw her live. Even when she was performing one of those long jazz-poetry numbers I lift the needle over while listening to her records to get to the next song that is essentially &#8220;Gloria,&#8221; I was magnetized by her shamanistic presence. However, when I read accounts by other artists from the New York punk scene, she&#8217;s often made out to be a sham, a careering opportunist. Maybe it&#8217;s jealousy, or maybe she&#8217;s not the real deal Regardless, her shtick works for me.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Do the following artists with oversized personalities strike you as shaman or sham? Do you think they are or were anywhere near as &#8220;out there&#8221; as they portray(ed) themselves to be, or do you think it&#8217;s mostly an act, the way humble gym teacher <a title=\"Gorilla Monsoon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1999\/10\/08\/nyregion\/gorilla-monsoon-62-villainous-pro-wrestler.html\" target=\"_blank\">Robert &#8220;Gino&#8221; Morella<\/a> transformed himself into <strong>Gorilla Monsoon<\/strong>, a raving lunatic, before entering the squared circle of professional wrestling? Despite claiming to have tripped for 3 years straight, David Bowie strikes me as another &#8220;out there&#8221; artist who, in his most out-there prime, could have put aside the alien routine for a cup of tea with the Prime Minister.<\/p>\n<p>I have nothing to back up these beliefs, but maybe you do about the following artists or any others who come to mind:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Keith Richards<\/li>\n<li>Alice Cooper<\/li>\n<li>Johnny Rotten\/John Lydon<\/li>\n<li>Grace Slick<\/li>\n<li>David Thomas<\/li>\n<li>David Lee Roth<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What other shaman or sham makes an impression on you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve come to love Patti Smith&#8216;s persona way more than her music, which I do like. She strikes me as a fellow Peace Warrior, a let-it-hang-loose freak in the best sense of the term. I usually get a charge out of people who sincerely let their freak flag fly, especially if I don&#8217;t have to <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/shaman-or-sham\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[598,895,894],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}