The TueDo List: Pistol Women + Teenage Björk + Danyel Smith’s Latest
Wherein we accidentally made a mini music issue. 🤘
THIS WEEK
📖 READ: Thirty years after “Little Earthquakes,” I’m finally ready for Tori Amos. How Patti Smith defined cool in lesbian bars of the ’80s. A profile of Mira Chai Hyde, who cuts the most famous hair in Hollywood in her garage. Norm Macdonald had one last secret. No, you are not the only one still wearing a mask. The all-female band Fanny made history. A new doc illuminates it. How — and where — to shop for plus-size vintage clothes.
👀 LOOK: Book titles written as emojis: Can you guess them all? Laverne Cox turned 50, so Mattel made her a Barbie doll. This 1982 Betamax footage of 16-year-old Björk fronting a punk band is everything. Rosemary Meza-DesPlas makes art from her own gray hair.
🎧 LISTEN: Season 7 of the Slow Burn podcast, about Roe v. Wade premieres tomorrow, as does the new three-part podcast Reclaimed: The Story of Mamie Till-Mobley. We made you a mix, bestie: Margit’s TueNight Summer Jams 2022 playlist.
🤣 LOL: If you’ve ever forgotten what something is called, you’re not alone.
🛒 ADD TO CART: TueNighter Jamiyla Chisholm’s new book, The Community: A Memoir (about growing up in a cult) comes out tomorrow!
📅 ADD TO CALENDAR: March for Our Lives (again) — nationwide — on June 11.
💔 HELP: GoFundMe has a list of ways you can help people in Uvalde.
TUENIGHT 10: Danyel Smith
Basic bio: The former editor-in-chief of Vibe, Danyel Smith is an author as well as the creator and host of Black Girl Songbook, a Spotify Original podcast that celebrates and uplifts Black women in the music industry. Her latest book, Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women In Pop combines highly personal interviews and memoir. Tracking her own journey as a music critic/music lover, Danyel connects Gladys Knight to Stephanie Mills in The Wiz to Whitney Houston. It’s a must-add to your summer reading list.
Beyond the bio: I spend too much money on things like moisturizers and “serums.” If I ever was a good writer, and editor, I am way better now, and I’m grateful. I thought I might be super serene at this age. Ha! The world does not allow.
What makes you a grown-ass lady? If I eat many cruciferous veggies, I can still enjoy my margherita pizzas and tacos al pastor. We should all move our bodies as much as we are able. Loud music is excellent for your state of mind. Be active civically. Champion bold art. Be open to who you believe is your Other — then exchange stories. Be responsible for your actions and how they affect others. Always apologize specifically, and loudly. Register to vote and vote.
Here’s her TueNight 10:
On the nightstand: The Josephine candle from Harlem Candle (fave!); Topo Chico grapefruit sparkling water: so necessary and refreshing; Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask in Gummy Bear (thank me later); and my first novel, More Like Wrestling, which is a kind of companion to Shine Bright.
Can't stop/won't stop: Riding my bicycle.
Jam of the minute: Ella Mai's new album Heart On My Sleeve. And always, my Black Girl Songbook.
Thing I miss: My great-grandparents: Dorothy, Dorson, and Lottie.
'80s crush: New Edition, Debbie Allen, Lonette McKee, Kadeem Hardison, Menudo, Stoney Jackson, Jody Watley, Prince — and too many others!
Current crush: My husband, Elliott.
Latest fav find: I have three: It’s All Gouda dog treats from Mind Body Bowl — our Cairn puppy loves them. I’m late to the Dark Rum candle from MALIN+GOETZ, but it’s worth every penny. And The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton, a novel that’s journalism; it’s fiction but it’s real.
Last thing you lost: Yet another hoop earring.
Best thing that happened recently: My nephew graduating with all kinds of academic honors from high school.
Looking forward to: Deep summer in Massachusetts.
STORY: Henry Rollins Helped Me Become the Coolest Girl in School
By Kelly Dwyer
In the fall of 1981 in San Pedro, California, I led a double life. By day, I was the senior class co-president, well-liked and respected by my peers and teachers, if not Homecoming court-popular. As a student, I was something of an underachiever; I ended up getting into both Berkeley and Oberlin, but I was often bored in class and put in the minimum effort required. I read Sylvia Plath and Kerouac and felt that nobody knew “the real me.” Perhaps all teenagers feel this way. But in 1981 in L.A., there was a home for a certain kind of young person who felt dissatisfaction, a longing for something unnamed, and this “home” was the punk rock scene.
So by night, I was a punk rocker. My female friends and I would don thrift store dresses, ripped tights, and combat boots while our male counterparts wore ripped jeans and band t-shirts. We would drive to various nightclubs or halls or occasionally garages to hear bands like The Minutemen, The Dead Kennedys, Sonic Youth, and, once, at the Whisky a Go-Go, X. At these various venues, I would listen to music that was so loud my eardrums often rang for days, flirt with pale, emaciated boys with cropped hair and multiple earrings and (mostly) eschew the beers and clove cigarettes passed around as I had a very un-punk preoccupation with conserving brain cells and avoiding lung cancer. Just as I felt I didn’t quite fit into high school world, I also didn’t totally fit into punk world. More than once I chewed out boys wearing T-shirts bearing Sharpie-drawn swastikas.
But it was exactly because I half-lived in both of these worlds that I was able to pull off the most exciting thing that ever happened in the history of my school: getting Black Flag to play on the outdoor steps of the front entrance during lunch.
Hey! Ho! Let’s Go, TueNighters!
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