Coming up at RADAR: BRONTEZ PURNELL

At October 13, 2011
By Michelle Tea
In 2012 Sister Spit Tour, RADAR Reading Series
0

Brontez Purnell makes a person laugh so hard that you feel like you did pilates the next day. Or like you had a personal trainer flinging a medicine ball at your abs. Listening to Brontez can give you a six pack, which is why he’s coming on Sister Spit this spring. Traveling with him is going to negate the need for rest stop yoga! Brontez is also going to be reading work atop the pool table at the Lex this Saturday night as part of Litcrawl, the funnest night of the year, when literary readings invade nearly every single business in the Mission. RADAR is at 7:15, and Brontez will be joined by Myriam Gurba, Mica Sigourney and Rhiannon Argo. And just to be fair, he might not be funny, okay? Because Brontez KEEPS IT REAL and sometimes Real is Real Tragic or Real Enraged or Real Confused, as well as Real Fucking Funny. Let’s get some Brontez realness right now!

Michelle Tea: When did you start your ‘zine FAG SCHOOL and what was the drive behind it? Are you still doing it?

Brontez Purnell: It was all really specific. I started writing it in 2001 right about the time I moved to Chattanooga TN. It was kinda an awesome time for me (I was 18) and the flow of zines in “THE REGION” (as we called it-others use the term DEEP SOUTH) was steady back then. I was reading the three issues of Doris i got OVER AND OVER again and there was this split zine that my friend Adee (drummer for New Bloods/ Nature) did with this other cool girl from Pensacola Florida (Sarah) who did it with her. It was the Finger on The Trigger(adee)/ Notes to Prisoners (sarah) split called “THE DONT TRY ME ISSUE” and they were just talking about there shit, hopping trains, spitting in cops faces, just being CRUNK AS FUCK and being hilarious as fuck about it and I remember being real juiced about the embodied voice of the stories. There were SO MANY vegan bike riding zines that it was good to get my hands on something that was CRUNK. I wanted to talk about sex and experience in this way and that was the initial spark for Fag School. The first issue wasnt out till 2003. I had moved to the Bay Area and i had meet Alvin Orloff and was interviewing him for Fag School (the first issue). He was talking about his book Gutter Boys and how its easier to write fiction cause memoir was hard if you didn’t write things down as they happened and so I wanted to include stuff like Cruising Reviews and stuff that was happening to me (mixed with some fiction) so I’d have plenty to laugh about when I was 80 and reading it (provided that I would still give a shit by then). I still do Fag School but the focus is more fiction now. I’m all old and don’t have the same gusto to scam copies and Office Max anymore but I’m still at it. I’m doing issue 4 now and then going to work on Issue 5 the final one.

MT: Do you still read zines? Do you read blogs? What are your favorite zines and blogs?

BP: I feel like I have a stack of zines that are a couple of years old that I always defer too, but I don’t really read zines as much as I did even 2 years ago. So few people do them! I don’t really keep up with blogs either except for Fag City by Max Steele. Everything else I just read on peoples profile pages.

MT: What sign are you?

BP: CANCER.

MT: Your performance at the Formerly Known As sex worker show at the National Queer Arts Festival this year was such an amazing calling out of bullshit, it was like inspired hysteria. What are the top three things you enjoy calling bullshit on? Or, maybe you don’t actually enjoy calling bullshit on anything?

BP: I only call bullshit on one thing and thats RUDE BEHAVIOR. It is the only thing I can’t DEAL WITH! I going to spare you (as I already know YOU know EXACTLY what I’m talking about). As is there no shortage of asshole-ism and TOTAL FUCKERY on the part of the masses I as a writer have a virtually limitless supply of fuel. I try to use my gift responsibly. I fail at times.

MT: Talk about your band! This is a literary audience – if you band was a mashup of writers, books, fictional characters, what would it be?

BP: I do this project called THE YOUNGER LOVERS. I record most of it myself and rock live with bandmates Adal and Mateo. I’ve rocked around with others as well (yeah – Gravy Train!!!! – !!!!). I basically wanted to record the fag version of “Exile in Guyville” (content wise, not sound wise to clarify) SO I DID. I’ve put out two LPS and a single. My band is basically (in literary terms) what would result if Theodore Bruce Nuggent (Langston Hughes rumored boyfriend who wrote about gay sex and prostitution in like the 20′s) had written The Outsiders with a cast of really hot black and latino boys. ITS THAT FUCKING KOOL.

MT: If you could walk into a book and live there what would it be?

BP: THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING-(I KNOW IT SOUNDS LIKE I’M SHITTING YOU BUT I’M NOT-I JUST LOVE UNICORNS AND MAGIC!-I don’t even remember what the fuck that book is about even!) and then that exact part in the book THE GIVER where the boy (his name is Jonas I think) escapes the world of black and white and finally sees in color the first time. I would also be keen to visit one of them big ole Orgies in Sodom and Gomorrah. DUDE.

MT: You’ll be reading on a pool table at the Lex. What are the weirdest places you’ve ever performed?

BP: In a literary sense no where really. In a (FAILED) hooker sense Days Inn in the Tenderloin. Ew.

And he dances too!

MT: Do you have groupies?

BP: I wish! Its actually the other way around. The last three guys i tried to date failed in part because the had problems with the politics of dating a “performer”. I write so much about sex and the sex that I have (and am not having) so much that I think it gets intimidating for guys, and then when ever I try to date another “performer” it kinda turns into this sibling competition thing no matter how far our two mediums are from one another. I’m trying to decide if i should try to find a balance or say to hell with it and embrace my (inevitable?) hipster spinsterhood.

MT: What will you do on Sister Spit this spring?

BP: I’ll be reading from my new novella “Johnny, would you love me if my dick were bigger?” (Diary of An American Waiter Bored At Work)

MT: And finally, everyone was so stressed out an concerned and pissed that you and your band mate got bashed earlier this year. Is there any news to report on that front? Any help needed?

BP: He has to have another surgery on his jaw so we’re throwing a benefit at our warehouse in Oakland in November. If anyone wants to be involved they can email me at brontez1@gmail.com

: Brontez by Adee Roberson

Catch Brontez at the Lexington Club Saturday, October 15th and all across the USA with Sister Spit April 2012

Cassie J. Sneider’s Life Was Saved By Rock n Roll

Cassie J. Sneider and Pug

Cassie J. Sneider’s debut book of stories Fine, Fine Music was just released on Raw Art Press and she’s in the midst of a nation-wide tour promoting it in Los Angles, Salt Lake City, New York and much of our USA between. I saw Sneider’s June 26th reading at San Francisco’s outstanding independent bookstore Dog Eared Books. Her in-person performances are fucking hilarious and I have the distinct memory of watching Sneider at the RADAR Reading Series in March 2010 when an entire room of 100+ San Franciscans CRIED with laughter at Cassie’s childhood attempts to fundraise for a family vacation by convincing her mom to host a yard sale. Cassie was kind of enough to answer some questions for RADAR while she’s in Austin, TX on her book tour.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

RADAR Productions: Where in the world are you right now?

Cassie J. Sneider: I am in Austin, Texas, staying with a buddy before leaving at midnight to be on time for a reading in Birmingham, AL.

RP: You are a committed traveler. You are 28, right? I gleaned from your book WHICH I LOVED that you graduated high school 4 years after me. (I graduated in 1997.)

CJS: Yes. I am 28. It’s kind of weird for me that I graduated in 2001. It sounds really young but my brain feels really old. When I was like 20, I was dating this dude who was like 36, and I remember him saying, “I got my nipples pierced when you were 5.” It’s like the WORLD got it’s nipples pierced when I was 5, and I was too young to do anything cool.

RP: I know. I only relate to people who are 40. Everyone always thinks I’m more ancient than I am. I just look haggard. Now that we established your coordinates, let’s get straight to the heart of everything: where are you astrologically? Sun, rising and moon sign?

CJS: [Looks it up.] Rising Sign is in 12 Degrees Aquarius. Sun is in 21 Degrees Sagittarius. Moon is in 02 Degrees Sagittarius.

RP: WHOA. SO much Sag. You can’t tolerate bad feelings for long, can you?And you want to be free and go places and have adventures. That aquarius makes you a natural performer.

CJS: I’m pretty forgiving and nomadic.

Cassie J. Sneider's gonna eat you next, fool.

RP: Ok so we have Sag, Sag and Aquarius. Good to know to set the foundation. Cassie, I loved the book. I read it in 3 nights and 2 days while staying up too late because I didn’t want to not finish. I really related: growing up in a shitty part outside of a city that is not close enough to absorb the culture and frenetic energy of the city; alcoholic parents; aimless youth and feeling saved by music and culture.

CJS: Thank you! that’s really exciting to hear. I always worry that people aren’t going to relate.

RP: What were some lengths you’d go to for rock n roll as a youngster?

CJS: I didn’t start going to any lengths for rock and roll until i was 18. Before then, I didn’t go to shows because I didn’t know where cool things were or how to have any friends who were into similar things. When I was out of high school, I met some kids into punk and then started booking shows, which worked out because I am quiet and neurotic and good at organizing. The first show I went to was RATT with my stepdad when I was 18. I won tickets off the radio, so there is really no hiding the late-bloomer factor in my social development.

RP: I think your book’s title is really poignant. So many people obsessed with music know that Velvet Underground song and you can’t read “Fine, Fine Music” without the subsequent line “You know her life was saved by rock n roll” flooding your brain.

CJS: The Dwarves were my favorite band, but I didn’t know if they played shows or where to go to see them. They were on band hiatus for a while, and I saw a flyer for them when I was 20 at another show. My heart nearly exploded from the excitement of seeing them and the realization that you get to be the adult you always wanted to be when you were 15 and sitting in your room wishing you had friends or knew how to get the hell away from where you live.

RP: Your book really has, much like a really good cheese, a sense of terroir. The place and time are so vivid. Your memory must be really good? Did you keep millions of journals and notes growing up?

CJS: I do have a really huge and embarrassing journal collection, so when I remember, “Oh, that was kind of funny,” I can find the box of journals and track down what I was feeling or how much I hated my parents or loved Jimmy Fitzgerald or wished U2 would come to my junior high and kick somebody’s ass. Not that U2 would ever do that sort of thing. I also have a pretty good memory. I usually read stories about my family to them, and they’ll laugh really hard and say, “I remember that!” and then I know I did my job.

I laughed! I cried! It was better than CATS!

RP: How was it for you, in the writing of your debut book, to detach from your family members’ reactions to your stories and their depictions?

CJS: There is one story that makes it pretty clear my parents did not make responsible decisions for my sister or me. When I initially wrote it, that was a stronger theme, but when it came time to include it in the manuscript, I took out some things I thought might be hurtful.

RP: What is your writing practice these days?

CJS: Usually, I’ll be walking the Pug and get an idea, write it on my hand, think about it for a while, then drink a lot of coffee and write the story. I still journal, but not withe the same fervor as i did when I was 15.

RP: What music are you obsessed with these days? What has played a role in your book tour, musically?

CJS: I have been listening to a lot of OFF! lately but the car I rented for tour has satellite radio. There is this station called The Bridge that plays 70s soft rock. I have been listening to a lot of Seals and Crofts to get pumped before readings. It’s pretty disgusting, actually, the terrible dichotomy of driving 90 miles an hour, drinking 44 ounce cups of coffee, arm hanging out the window but with “Summer Breeze” playing. When i get home, I decided to make t-shirts that say, “SEALS & CROFTS & CASSIE J. SNEIDER.” You can have one as soon as I make them.

RP: What writers are you obsessed with these days? Who have you been reading, are you reading, or hoping to read when you’re done reading your own book every night to strangers?

CJS: When I get home, I am hoping to read the new Steven Tyler autobiography for pearls of wisdom. I’ve been reading a lot of poetry by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, a really great poet from Philadelphia. I also recently read The Beautifully Worthless by Ali Liebegott to gear up for a dog-and-human cross country trip.

RP: What non-book reading do you love? (ie magazines, blogs, USA Today News From Every State)

CJS: I get a lot of letters, so checking my PO Box is pretty exciting. I get a lot of jailmail and letters from kids who find my stuff, so I usually spend the whole day reading stuff from people, and it’s a nice reminder that the world isn’t as big as it feels sometimes.

RP: Do you initiate contact with prisoners or do they find you?

CJS: Maximum RockNRoll did a few zine reviews a couple of years ago, and I started getting letters from people in jail. Mosy pf them are incarcerated for things that if they could afford lawyers, they probably would have just gotten a slap on the wrist, but because of poverty, will be stuck in the system forever. I donated a bunch of my books to Pages for Prisoners to sort of keep it going. While I was there, we opened up a few letters from prisoners. They were really depressing. Some prisons don’t allow book carts and make it really difficult to ship books to people.

RP: Are you involved with any Books for Prisoner programs?

CJS: Now I am! [Bloomington, Indiana's] Boxcar Books works with Midwest Pages for Prisoners, but when I get back from tour, I am going to see what’s happening on the East Coast and what I can do. I tried to do a reading and workshop at a prison in Texas and got disqualified because I am already penpals with one of the dudes there. It was really upsetting. I tried SO HARD to make it happen. I sent emails and made phone calls and eventually spoke to the substitute warden who said I was being disqualified on the basis that I was already in contact with someone there. He’s in there for some kind of drug charge and has good behavior, so it just seemed like an excuse. I emailed and called to speak to someone else, but no one would return my calls or emails. It was really disheartening.

RP: What is your interest in reading to prisoners specifically?

CJS: I think the American prison system is pretty messed up, and the idea of maybe starting something positive in someone’s life or helping them see that they can express their experiences in words or cartoons is my motivation.

RP: What is the the book tour traveling like for you? Fun, lonely, inspiring, a mindfuck?

CJS: Well, I have my dog, Pug, with me. I have been trying to make it like a 1950s family vacation. There has been a lot of, “Hydroelectricity! Well, would you look at that, son! I’ll be!” It’s been pretty good. Doing so much driving is a little maddening, especially when you talk to people and say things like, “C’mon, it’s only a 9 hour drive!” and they look at you like you are crazy.

Secret truth: Pug ghost-wrote much of her book.

RP: What kind of personality and set of reactions do you project onto Pug? What does he think about all this?

CJS: In my imagination, Pug reacts to everything in a whisper and is always looking at the bright side. He says things like, “This hotdog is soooo goooood…” or “Bread is my favorite soft rock band…they are sooooo goood…”

RP: At [San Francisco's] Dogeared Books, you had to nudge Pug awake because his snoring competed with your reading. Any more experiences with Pug in the venues?

CJS: His narcolepsy and apparent non-interest in my stardom makes me feel like he’s not that much of a team player sometimes, but he’s held it together when it counts. The only real problem with him was at Dog Eared when he started rustling through that lady’s bag like he was a jackal eating what was left of a felled zebra.

RP: I thought maybe you two had a thing worked out like you’re the decoy and he goes in for the theft while we’re laughing at your story.

CJS: Sister Spit doesn’t check criminal records, right?

RP: If we did, we’d never have a full van, my friend. What are your hopes for upcoming writing projects?

CJS: I have two graphic novels I am working on. One is a real life story of every bad job I had when I lived in Austin, Texas mixed with a roadtrip to see the Dwarves where we hit a deer and all hell broke loose. The other one is a story about a guy who is addicted to computer duster but the manager of Walgreens won’t let him buy it anymore, so he starts stealing his grandmother’s medication, which starts to give him old-woman superpowers and side effects. I am trying to get it done by the fall so I can show it for [the 2012 Sister Spit] tour.

RP: Finally, what’s your ideal situation for listening to music? Tell me about the environment and method.

CJS: Well, I collect 8-tracks, and my bed is a 1970s plush burgundy porno bed with an 8-track player and lights built into it. I also collect porno records and sexy jazz music. I think you can do the math on that. Also, I really like when people send me letters. If anyone reads the book, write me and tell me about yourself!

RP: Thanks for taking time out on this patriotic day of spangled string bikinis to be interviewed!

CJS: You’re welcome! Thanks for interviewing me and not minding that I was wearing this spangled string bikini while we skyped!

Cassie J. Sneider will be a featured writer on the 2012 Sister Spit tour. Catch her April 2012! In the meantime, put down the computer and buy her book!