I got privately singed by a poet/musician for a recent poem of mine being too (as he considered it) "poor me"--meaning that expressing a complaint through artistic means amounted to nothing but a complaint. The corollary apparently being that complaining was bad and I should shut up.
Curious what the poet/musician would think of Pat Benatar's current autobiography BETWEEN A HEART AND A ROCK PLACE. It's filled with "poor me" anecdotes about how Ms. Benatar and her guitar ace husband Neil "Spyder" Giraldo put up with a lot of micromanagement, "keep recording and touring because you don't need a break" harangues and sexism from radio programmers, record producers and their bosses at Chrysalis Records (Ms. Benatar's manager, Rick Newman, of Catch A Rising Star comedy club fame, seemed to not want to offend Chrysalis execs and would avoid taking Ms. Benatar's side--preferring to walk the middle path). And all of this occurred when Ms. Benatar was trying to exude (and control) a sexy-but-tough femme rocker image.
BETWEEN A HEART AND A ROCK PLACE is essentially a good, occasionally quite educational read--although the reality of the current Benatar/Giraldo career (judging by their co-headlining show with Blondie that I saw at the Orange County Fair last year) is that they're now a by-the-numbers oldies act.
But that shouldn't take away from the impact of Ms. Benatar's early records--aided by Mr. Giraldo's expert and sometimes unnecessarily underrated guitar-playing.
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