Week 32: How Artists Survive in America - Part 2 with Jennifer Blowdryer and Tammy Melody Gomez

In which the podcaster presents the second of three special episodes for the month of January in which he interviews artists and writers about how they manage to support themselves and their creative work while carving out time for it in contemporary American culture. 
 
 WITH GUESTS
 
Jennifer Blowdryer

Jennifer Blowdryer is a singer and writer whose songs observe in a somewhat detached manner the underworld of punk rock and regular people. She started as front person for an SF Punk Band, The Blowdryers, in 1978. When JB moved to NYC she wrote for sex magazines and went on to produce and MC Smut Fests at a lap dancing parlor in Tribeca, which toured internationally. Blowdryer has also worked as a columnist for Maximum R’n’R, Downtown, and New York Press, an adjunct teacher, coat checker and every damn thing that kept up with the rent. Today, Jennifer gigs and records alongside some of NYC’s best, most lived-in musicians, has published several books from 1984 – 2024, and is on the last available welfare in the United States. 

Links:

• Spotify page (w various songs, including “Smoke”, mentioned in the episode)
• Jennifer's page on Zeitgeist Press
• Check out Good Advice for Trendy People of All Ages at Manic-D Press

Tammy Melody Gomez

Tammy Melody Gomez, based in north Texas, serves as mentor and literary maven to folks circling the DIY/TAZ spaces. She has most enjoyed living as an interdisciplinary artist/performer, while making her rent by: working as a teaching artist (poetry, theatre, language arts); sitting on grant panels; reading “brown people” poetry for city-sponsored events; divining people’s futures using Loteria cards; and assorted other gigs. She also has bicycled to her part-time medical library job since January, 2000. Residencies and grants have figured into her calculus of survival, and she advises all to APPLY because you never know who on the panel might decide in your favor: for something else.  

Links:

• bio from Black Earth Institute (and About Place Journal)
• Tammy's Soundcloud page
• “One Block Poem” - Poetry Installation video (2010)
• “4th of July: Not Done” – colonial protest performance video (2020)
• “TRASH: Chauvin” –  short film with poetry by Tammy M. Gomez and Everton Melo (2020)

Socials

• IG - @tejanatongue
• FB - Tammy Melody Gomez

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Chapters

• 1:11 Jennifer Blowdryer - song and interview
• 40:39 Tammy Melody Gomez - reading with music and interview