“There’s something I dread about talking to female musicians,” my co-editor DiMartino sighed as we drank beer and worried in the bar of Chrissie Hynde’s Detroit hotel.

I knew this wasn’t just sexism—we’ve gone too many rounds in the Editorial room on those grounds.

No, this was heavy Writer Dread. This particular dread we call the Patti Smith Syndrome, whereby a highly creative individual proves also to be a tensely strung personality. It seemed, peculiarly endemic to women in the business, and no, I ain’t being chauvinistic. The business is harder on them; maybe they’re harder on everybody else as a result.

With such a person, one meeting would be peace, love, and better living through human chemistry. The next day, or week: eat shit and die, journalist scum.

Chrissie Hynde’s reputation preceeded her; we’d been entertained for months by the tales in the English weeklies about cars wrecked, people insulted and/or bopped, and always—much liquor consumed. Entertaining, until we have to ride the tiger ourselves.