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Beat's Ginsberg hits Hill Auditorium in style

"Allen Ginsberg is about confused mind writing down newspaper headlines from Mars." This line from Ginsberg's recent poem "Is About" captures much of his appeal, but Friday night's performance at the Hill Auditorium proved that he is about much more than that. Ginsberg read poems new and old, sang with two different backing bands and discussed Buddhist teachings in a benefit for Jewel Heart, which also included a blistering performance by rock-poet legend Patti Smith.

Smith, introduced by Ginsberg as "one of the pioneers of spoken poetry and music," took the stage for the first half of the show. With a new album completed last week, a newly published book of poems and a massive tour planned for the near future, she appears ready for a return to the public eye from her "meditative cave" of the '80s. Her act was ragged and unorganized at times, but always inspiring.

Smith was an intimidating presence on stage, despite her frail figure. She read several poems with gritty power, while her musical performances soared. The dirge-like "Walkin' Blind" from the "Dead Men Walking" soundtrack was a highlight of the evening, followed by a seemingly improvised poem with the repeated mantra, "The people have the power, the power to dream." Her impassioned beatnik call for empowerment was met with wild applause, and Smith rode this wave of emotion throughout the rest of the evening.

Smith's newer songs, especially "Gone Again," written with her late husband Fred "Sonic" Smith of the MC5, were delivered with surprising punk ferocity for an all-acoustic band.

But there was no doubt that the night really belonged to Allen Ginsberg. With his already legendary status rising due to the recent revival of beatnik culture, Ginsberg seemed determined to be unpredictable. He read only two short poems from the era of "Howl" and "Kaddish" (which he had read the previous two years), preferring to focus on recent work, including Patti Smith-influenced pairings of poetry and song.

Ginsberg opened with two Buddhist-inspired songs in tribute to his spiritual teacher Kyabje Gelek Rinpoche, the founder of Jewel Heart. He accompanied the soulful "Father Death Blues" with rudimentary accordion work, backed by a viola and a stand-up bass. In a lighter vein was "Do the Meditation Rock," which managed to poke fun at Buddhism while describing the meditation process in great detail. The audience clapped along to Ginsberg's Dylan-esque vocals and lines like "I fought the Dharma and the Dharma won."

Rinpoche was then invited on stage to "submit himself to some American interrogation." Responding to Ginsberg's teasing demand to know "what kind of trip you are laying on everybody," Rinpoche described the purpose of Jewel Heart as "to serve and to share the Buddha's way."

Ginsberg's newer, more heavily structured poetry tended to focus on the mundane and humorous aspects of life, as in poems such as "Tuesday Morning" and "Excrement." His energetic, staccato reading of "Tuesday" had more in common with a comedy show than a poetry reading, while "Excrement" described the need of everyone to "attend to their business" and depicted that business in slightly disgusting detail. Ginsberg's "American Sentences," a 17-syllable haiku-like form, also amused -- "I felt a breeze below my waist, and realized my fly was open."

But in older works like "On Neal Cassady's Ashes" and "Memory Gardens," which eulogized beat icons Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg's trademark haunting, free-form style was apparent. The newer "Is About" seemed to be a bridge between his more serious earlier work and his recent style, declaring what everything from Beethoven to the Pope to America "is about."

The political flavor of this poem carried over to Ginsberg's second musical set, beginning with what he referred to as "my contribution to the war on drugs" in the song "Put Down Your Cigarette Rag." Ginsberg encouraged the audience to avoid "the official government dope" and to instead "put something green between your lips." A ready-for-Hash-Bash audience applauded enthusiastically.

The epic "Ballad of the Skeletons" proved that Ginsberg is no musical poseur. Accompanied by the frantic electric guitar of Lenny Kaye (who had performed acoustically earlier with Smith), Ginsberg took on vital political, religious and economic issues with clear, catchy lyrics. Each short verse was followed by a crowd-pleasing vamp from Kaye, whom Ginsberg himself seemed to thoroughly enjoy, saying afterwards, "It blew my mind." For any aficionado of the Beat Generation or rock 'n' roll, the entire evening was truly mind-blowing.