#bruce snider

[kitchen-light]

It was the beginning of two impressions that would only deepen the more I read. The first was that if you were gay, you needed to live in the city. The second was that if you were gay and wanted to be a writer, you needed to write about the city.

Bruce Snider, from his essay “Where Are All the Rural Gay Poets?”, published in Lit Hub, September 22, 2017

[thebitchthatiam]

[dailyfandombooty]

[myvinylplaylist]

Pure Fire: The Ultimate Kiss Tribute (2018)

2022 Vinyl Reissue on Transparent Red Vinyl

Cleopatra Records

[thejovimysterytrain]

[keefechambers]

Rock musician: has been consistently political for decades

Rock musician: Gets on Twitter and expresses a political opinion

White Conservstive Gen-X Men: i lIkeD you TiL yOU GOt poLitICal. i'M nOt A fAn AnYMOre

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Todd Snider - Live: Return of the Storyteller

No one was happier to return to the post-quarantine road than Todd Snider.

The joy is evident on Live: Return of the Storyteller, an album that culls 27 songs and stories from Snider’s 2021 gigs to recreate one spectacular Todd Snider concert, which in this era tended to open with “Big Finish” and close with “Opening Statement.”

So does this record.

Few live albums - including 2011’s Live: The Storyteller - capture the essence of a performer the way Return of the Storyteller captures the essence of Todd Snider.

And with the benefit of editing, there’s no ebb, only flow. The listener winds up with 95 minutes of excellent performances, laugh-out-loud-hysterical stories, engaged audiences and an even more-engaged Snider, who accompanies himself on acoustic guitar, harmonica and jokes.

The tracklist spans Songs for the Daily Planet (“Alright Guy”) through First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder (“Sail On, My Friend”) and finds Snider talking about taking acid with Hard Working Americans, witnessing Col. Bruce Hampton’s storybook death, walking off stage when a fan kept yelling for “Freebird” and lying about how well he knew John Prine.

Music lovers who haven’t witnessed Snider for themselves have an item left on the bucket list. In the meantime, Return of the Storyteller is the best you-were-there substitute one could ask for.

Grade card: Todd Snider - Live: Return of the Storyteller - A

9/28/22

[llovelymoonn]

favourite poems of january

christian wiman hard night: "the ice storm"

timothy donnelly hymn to life

randall jarrell the complete poems: "the lost world"

dana levin the living teaching

stuart dybeck brass knuckles: "the knife-sharpener's daughter"

kofi awoonor the promise of hope: new and selected poems: "lament of the silent sisters"

bruce snider ode to a dolly parton drag queen

jon pineda birthmark: "translation"

brenda shaughnessy interior with sudden joy: "dear gonglya"

franny choi hangul abecedarian

atsuro riley hutch

clark moore strikes and gutters

jenny xie eye level: "rootless"

alberto ríos the smallest muscle in the human body: "rabbits and fire"

tim seibles mosaic

anthony hecht an offering for patricia

harry matthews cool gales shall fan the glades

robert glück the word in us: lesbian and gay poetry of the next wave: "burroughs"

albert goldbarth the poem of the little house at the corner of misapprehension and marvel

george seferis collected poems (george seferis): "spring a.d."

alberto ríos a small story about the sky

sharmila voorakkara for the tattooed man

robin blaser the holy forest: collected poems of robin blaser: "the truth is laughter 10"

robert pinsky gulf music: "antique"

henri cole blackbird and wolf: "twilight"

paul violi likewise: "in praise of idleness"

ron padgett collected poems: "what are you on?"

meena alexander birthplace with buried stones: "lychees"

sara borjas decolonial self-portrait

valerie martínez absence, luminescent: "the reliquaries"

kathryn simmonds the visitations: "in the woods"

kofi

[hawkeyeslaughter]

a comprehensive list of songs and lyrics that remind me of hawkeye pierce ( either about him / his perspective ) ( will be updated )

angst / sad

— johnny cash , hurt — “ what have i become / my sweetest friend / everyone i know / goes away in the end “

— jason isbell , white elephant — “ there’s one thing that’s real clear to me / no one dies with dignity / we just try to ignore the elephants of now “

— todd snider , too soon to tell — “ and dear lord if you’re up there / you sure got some nerve / seems like even the wicked / they get worse than they deserve “

— warren zevon , hasten down the wind — “ she’s so many women / he can’t find the one who was his friend / so he’s hangin’ on to half her heart / he can’t have the restless part / so he tells her to hasten down the wind “

— boy genius , afraid of heights — “ when the black water ate you up / like a sugar cube in a teacup / i got the point you were making / when i held my breath ‘ till you came up “

— surf curse , freaks — “ i am just a freak / my head is filled with parasites / i dream of you almost every night / hopefully i won’t wake up this time “

— dandelion hands , i could have sworn you were dead — “ i could have sworn you were dead / but i saw you in a dream last night / there were flowers growing out of your head / and it made me smile “

— todd snider , carla — “ leaving me was one thing carla / why’d you have to leave so slow / i didn’t mind you walking away / what hurt was how you walked so slow “

— willie nelson , angel flying too close to the ground — “ and i patched up your broken wing / and hung around awhile / trying to keep your spirits up / and your fever down “

fun

— bruce springsteen , born to run — “ together wendy we can live with the sadness / i’ll love you with all of the madness in my soul “

— todd snider , ballad of the devil’s backbone tavern — “ life’s too short to hurry / life’s too long to wait / too short not to love everybody / life’s too long to hate “

— hozier , someone new — “ i fall in love just a little oh , little bit / every day with someone new “

— mgmt , me and michael — “ in every scene , it’s me and michael / imaginary bombs raining down from the clouds / so it seems / the danger will never let the feelings die “

— billy joel , only the good die young — “ we might be laughing a bit too loud / oh , but that never hurt no one “

— alanis morissette , hand in my pocket — “ i’m sad , but i’m laughing / i’m brave , but i’m chicken shit / i’m sick , but i’m pretty , baby “

— aha , take on me — “ take on me ( take on me ) / take me on ( take on me ) / i’ll be gone / in a day or two “

— crosby , stills , & nash , love the one you’re with — “ well there’s a rose / in the fisted glove / and eagle flies / with the dove / and if you can’t be / with the one you love / honey , love the one you’re with “

love songs

— r.e.m , at my most beautiful — “ i found a way to make you / i found a way / a way to make you smile “

— john prine , iris dement , in spite of ourselves — “ in spite of ourselves / we’ll end up sitting on a rainbow / against all odds / honey , we’re the front door prize “

— arctic monkeys , baby i’m yours — “ baby i’m yours ( baby i’m yours ) / and i’ll be yours / until two and two is three “

—the cults , always forever — “ you and me / always forever “

— coldplay , sparks — “ and i know i was wrong / but i won’t let you down / oh , yeah , yeah , yeah i will / yes i will “

old songs

— etta james , one for my baby — “ i could tell you a lot / but i know you got to remain / true to your code / just make it one for my baby / and one more for the road “

— elvis presley , love me — “ treat me like a fool / treat me mean and cruel / but love me “

— frank sinatra , i get a kick out of you — “ some , they go for cocaine / i’m sure that if i took even one sniff / that would bore me terrifically , too / but i get a kick out of you “

— dooley wilson , as time goes by — “ you must remember this / a kiss is just a kiss / a sigh is just a sigh / the fundamental things apply / as time goes by “

— frank sinatra , in the wee small hours of the morning — “ when your lonely heart has learned its lesson / you’d be her’s , if only she would call / in the wee small hours in the morning / that’s the time you miss her most of all “

i have no explanation for these i honestly can just imagine him liking them . or singing them . obnoxiously .

— the gourds , fossil contender — “ well , how would you feel / if i dug up your head ? / well i wouldn’t want to be answerin’ any of your / loaded questions , no “

— counting crows , mr . jones and me — “ mr . jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky / when everybody loves you / oh son , that’s just about as funky as you can be “

— don mclean , vincent — “ and when no hope was left inside on that starry , starry night / you took your life , as lovers often do / but i could have told you , vincent / that this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you “

— warren zevon , werewolves of london — “ you hear them howlin’ around your kitchen door / better not let ‘em in / little old lady got mutilated late last night / werewolves of london again “

— queen , bohemian rhapsody — “ mama , ooh / i don’t wanna die / sometimes wish i’d never been born at all “ ( i’m sorry but you guys know he’d fucking love this song . idk what to tell you . )

— weezer , buddy holly — “ whoo - wee i look just like buddy holly / oh , oh and you’re mary tyler moore “ ( sorry . again . but we know it’s true )

unfortunately i am under the opinion that hawkeye would know all of the pitch perfect songs . there is nothing you can do to sway me from this opinion .

[music-polls]

Choose wisely...

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #38: 1987

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: The Bangles, Heart, Gregory Abbott, Whitney Houston, Starship, Robbie Nevil, Whitesnake, Bruce Hornsby and the Range, Bob Seger, Bon Jovi. End description]

More information about this blog here

Lots of things happening this year. What I want to draw attention to first is the influx of glam metal (or hair metal). Heavy metal as a genre had existed for a few decades by this point, mostly branching off of the blues and psychedelic rock of the late 1960's. To avoid going on an overly-long tangent about metal, I'll leave it at that for now. Glam metal has its roots in the heavy metal sound while also (as the name would suggest) taking additional influences from the glam rock of the 1970's. MTV was very kind to this style of music, and glam metal reached a level of fame where you didn't have to be deep in the metal scene to be exposed to. Other subgenres like thrash and death metal would also grow in popularity around this time, but only to those who were aware of what was going on. Metallica would have to wait to breach the underground and MTV would probably have a hard time getting middle America on board with Necrophagia. So while there was a lot going on in metal throughout the 80s, there's a reason why when most people think of "80s metal", there's a very specific image that comes with that.

But that isn't to suggest that rock music in the mainstream was able to escape controversy by featuring more hairspray and less corpse paint, because there's another moment in music history that will culminate this year. In 1985, the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) put together a list called the "Filthy Fifteen", which listed fifteen songs thought to be inappropriate and damaging towards traditional family values. Songs on the list include Prince's Darling Nikki (which seemed to have raised the most ire out of the PMRC's co-founder, Tipper Gore), Mötley Crüe's Bastard, Twisted Sister's We're Not Gonna Take It, and Cyndi Lauper's She Bop. A senate hearing over the matter of explicit lyrics was held in 1985, with musicians Frank Zappa, John Denver, and Twisted Sister's Dee Snider speaking out in opposition to censorship. There is a lot behind this conflict, both inside the courtroom and outside, so I'm aware that I'm giving a very fly-over view of the events for the sake of this poll. I'll just mention that these hearings were sometimes dubbed "The Porn-Rock Hearings", the outcry from these concerned parents groups fit really well in Reagan's America, and Zappa gave this absolute bomb of a quote that has been sitting with me a lot as of late:

"Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are, in my opinion, more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality. Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religious Thought, and the Right to Due Process for composers, performers and retailers are imperiled if the PMRC and the major labels consummate this nasty bargain."

There are so many good quotes, so I linked to the Full Video and Transcript

To make a long story unfortunately short, something of a compromise was reached by requiring musicians and labels to put "parental advisory" stickers on their albums, alerting potential consumers of the "objectionable" material within. Some musicians found the label as a loss for free speech and another example of the U.S. government deciding whose voices get to be considered moral or not. Other musicians predicted that the parental advisory sticker would only make their music more appealing to young people. You probably didn't need me to tell you this, but Tipper Gore and the PMRC did not stop the "moral downfall of America", if such a thing could even be quantified.

So now we all have little black and white stickers on our albums, yay. But this is far from the last time we'll see a major court case over music and obscenity. But we'll go over that next decade.

[kitchen-light]

an embodiment of Salman Rushdie’s claim, in Imaginary Homelands, that “description is itself a political act,” that “redescribing a world is the necessary first step towards changing it.”

Bruce Snider, from his essay “Where Are All the Rural Gay Poets?”, published in Lit Hub, September 22, 2017

[adultswim2021]

Space Ghost Weekend (part 2)

It's the second season of the dang GameTap episodes of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and the second of two posts covering them on this dang blog. I have very special thoughts about these, so please! pour over every word. Read this out loud to a loved one if needed.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #98: "Richard" | September 11, 2007 | S09E01

In this episode: Moltar discusses Linda, solidifying her into the canon of Space Ghost. I will not rest until she gets her first onscreen appearance on HBOMax’s Jellystone. In the cold open they joke about Moltar being whipped. Space Ghost proclaims to be the Earl of Peppercorn, which is pretty wacky. Moltar is self-conscious about having a huge head. And other garbage. 

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #99: "Stephen" | October 31, 2007 | S09E02

Okay, so Yar is back in this one, and he doesn’t actually sound like the one guy I said from yesterday’s post, I fucked up. He also is clearly drawn in a pixel art style, which I didn’t realize because of the questionable provenance of the video files I’m watching. He’s sorta the Bubba Duck of this show (readers! Bubba Duck was introduced late into Ducktales’ run, and those episodes are largely considered [by whom?] to be inferior to the ones that came before them!).

There’s a non-verbal (like Val Kilmer aww) appearance from the Council of Doom. This one is abysmal. They really chopped up the interview to make it sound nonsensical, and I personally consider this to be cheating at making Space Ghost. Worse than having your main character follow an ant around for 11 minutes (Which I like!!!).

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #100: "David" | November 11, 2007 | S09E03

Seems like this show thrives on coming up with silly words like “Lava Chicken”. I sorta liked this one but it’s still pretty weak. Zorak takes over the show after bogusly claiming that Moltar went on “vacation”, tantamount to “escaping” Space Ghost's enslavement. Space Ghost goes on a wild goose chase looking for him. If this were a higher-budgeted episode they’d probably take it to funnier places, but Space Ghost talks to little Space Ghosts instead and it’s mildly amusing. Moltar was in the bathroom the whole time, nasty!

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #101: "Chantal" | December 2, 2007 | S09E04

Why do these all start with a weird click noise? I’m guessing that’s the website’s fault and people screen-recorded these? This one features Chantal Claret who seems like she’s a fan of Space Ghost. She’s also one of the biggest babes the show has ever had. It’s a shame she was wasted on a Gametap episode! I have not heard her music or googled her name + "Israel" so I’m not sure if I respect her or not yet. But she seems cool I like her. 

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #102: "Mark" (lost) | May 4, 2008 | S09E05 Space Ghost Coast to Coast #103: "Bruce" (lost) | May 16, 2008 | S09E06

Two losties in a row. No Idea who these schmoes are. I can’t even google these dildos. My pal London told me that the lost episode's titles/guests could very well be bogus; filled-in by some ne'er-do-well on a wiki, and that this information has self-replicated itself ever since. I am very interested to find out if that's true or not, but I believe it. I did do a cursory search on the library of congress website and was astonished to see some GameTap episodes listed, but it was missing episodes that definitely do exist so I can't really conclude anything from that.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #104: "Dee" | May 25, 2008 | S09E07

Dee Snider who I heard is MEAN IN REAL LIFE appears in Space Ghost’s monitor. The compositing effects look bad again. Maybe Dee had to self-tape and this is what we got? They bleeped the word bitch in this. The Ghost Planet building is shown to blow up and a title appears on screen saying TO BE CONTINUED. This turns out to be a FUCKING joke. Dee is sorta funny in this, he gets into the spirit of the show pretty well by egging Moltar and Zorak to rebel against Space Ghost. 

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #105: "Barenaked Ladies" | May 31, 2008 | S09E08

This is easily the best episode of the GameTap batch, because it made me laugh twice. I expect this gag might be polarizing, but the weird live-action nipple with the fly crawling on it made me laugh. It’s unlike anything the show has ever done, really, and it was probably the element of surprise that got me. I suspect that gag might’ve pissed some people off, though.

The other part that made me laugh was when Space Ghost urges the band members to do something “sinsational” and the smack his lips. No joke, I laughed so hard at this, and it was one of those rolling laughs that feel like they’ll never end. They deserved the Peabody award for that joke. 

Space Ghost Coast to Coast: "Jonny Quest" | March 19, 1996 | Special

I wanted to throw this in there because I do sorta feel like this comes close to being a SORTA episode? It’s not really any better than the GameTap episodes, in my opinion. It’s mostly Space Ghost being excited about Jonny Quest’s VHS releases. Space Ghost never got an official retail VHS tape release, if I’m not mistaken, and couldn't you just imagine the world we’d be living in if there had been? 9/11 wouldn’t have happened! But Jan 6th still would have :( 

That's that for Space Ghost Weekend. We'll begin doing 2010 pretty soon. Maybe not exactly tomorrow, but soon.

[jocia92]

Thoughts on Dan Stevens in the 'Welcome to Chippendales' premiere.

Paul Snider was a truly horrible person, and I think that he is up there with the most unlikable people Dan has ever played. Which is partly because he was a real person who caused real harm. It was unsettling to watch him yell about Dorothy Stratten being a fucking bitch and a slut and all the rest. Even so, the show’s version is probably not even half as repugnant as the real man seems to have been. He's obviously still obnoxious, crass, misogynistic and ultimately violent, but the pretty light tone and writing of the show doesn't really allow for getting into it and of course he's just a minor part of the story. The Eric Roberts version of Snider in 'Star 80' was far scarier, but that was a totally different kind of project.

The show really condenses the timeline of Paul Snider's and Dorothy Stratten's connection to Chippendales and her murder. I guess to make it seem more immediate and fit it in one episode. Although they both had small but crucial parts in the early days of Chippendales, it was really not a huge part of their lives and hadn't been for a significant period by the time of their deaths.

In the show they have Steve Banerjee be inspired by a visit to a gay club with the idea for a male strip club for women, with Snider being against it initially. Presumably because Steve is the lead character and they wanted him to have the idea.

In real life Snider brought the idea to Banerjee. From Episode 1 of the podcast 'Welcome to Your Fantasy' (quoted is Bruce Nahin, who used to study for the bar at Destiny II, and then became an investor in the club. Not portrayed in the show.)

“Paul had gone to Canada someplace and saw some sort of gay male revue that was striptease, and he came and he told us about it.”

Snider convinces Banerjee that Chippendales should host its own male strip show, but not a gay revue. At Chippendales, the men will strip for women. Banerjee goes for it. What's he got to lose? They agree that Snider will emcee the show and they'll split the profits.

Bruce describes Snider in the podcast as “Animated. Crazy. Wouldn't stop talking. Obnoxious. Not one of my favorites.”

He was very bad at being an emcee, which was a problem, and they ended up replacing him with a local radio DJ named Richard Barsh. So that was the end of Paul Snider's involvement in Chippendales. It seems like they were easily able to take the idea and push him out. Nick De Noia hadn't entered the scene at that point.

Performance wise Dan definitely tore through the episode. He seemed to be especially having a lot of fun with Paul’s cringeworthy emceeing and delivered his lines in those scenes with an absolutely unhinged energy. I enjoyed the whole recruiting guys at the beach/flyer handing out part. It was funny, despite Paul's grossness. The way he shot that basketball so terribly and then yelled "fuck!" made me laugh. I think Dan sold Snider's desperation and patheticness well. He always goes for it completely in whatever he does.

Fully ignoring the terribleness of Paul Snider, I do love Dan in those outfits.

It's interesting that Dan has played two different real-life figures this year, at different ends of the seventies. Paul Snider makes John Dean seem like a great guy by comparison.

[kabillieu]

Something both annoying and wonderful about my university is that GTAs have complete creative control over the classes we teach. Yaaaayyyy!!! But also class planning feels like the Wild West. There are no boundaries, structures, or templates. Also, there's a culture of using online materials instead of expensive textbooks, which is great, but I feel very pressured to come up with 100% of my course materials on my own.

I had to have some way to filter my poetry writing class, or I was just going to continue to stupidly flounder, so I settled on the theme of "home" and broke up my semester into three subcategory units: homeland, hearth and home, and home as place. This has been a very helpful organizational device for my brain, and has allowed me to generate lots of ideas about poets who write broadly in these themes. Picking out poems for us to read has been a lot of fun.

Here are a few of the poets I'm excited to read this semester: Mahmoud Darwish, Ilya Kaminsky, Li-Young Lee, Dunya Mikhail, Hugh Martin, Victoria Kelly, Hayan Charara, Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Bruce Snider, Mary Oliver, Lucille Clifton, Anne Sexton, Natasha Trethewey, Marilyn Nelson, Ada Limón, Sharon Olds, Jamaal May, Maggie Smith, Ruth Stone, Aracelis Girmay, Wendell Berry, Ross Gay, Robert Hayden, Terrance Hayes, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Yusef Komunyakaa, Philip Levine, Adam Zagajewski, W.S. Merwin, and James Wright.

I'm sure I'll think of many more as the semester continues. I feel moderately well-read in contemporary poetry for pretty much the first time ever, so it's a good time to teach my first poetry class.

[theorichardspota]

Afterlife

BY BRUCE SNIDER

I wake to leafless vines and muddy fields, patches of standing water. His pocketknife

waits in my dresser drawer, still able to gut fish. I pick up his green shirt, put it on for the fourth day

in a row. Outside, the rusty nail he hammered catches me, leaves its stain on everything.

The temperature drops, the whole shore filling with him: his dented chew can, waders,

the cattails kinked, bowing their distress. At the pier, I use his old pliers to ready the line:

fatheads, darters, a blood worm jig. Today, the lake’s one truth is hardness. When the trout bite,

I pull the serviceable things glistening into air.