Russ Smith Profile
Russ Smith

@MUGGER2023

947
Followers
280
Following
461
Media
112,009
Statuses

Founder of New York Press and @SpliceToday2022

Baltimore
Joined March 2023
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
4 months
@nickyotissmith @shalashaska098 You don't mention the (successful!) April Fool's prank I pulled on you when you were in middle school. I said Tarantino had punched his ticket and your jaw dropped. I immediately fessed up.
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Russ Smith
9 months
Via @ToddSeavey : Trump for all his deranged and dangerous deviations, makes it all seem sort of effortless, like Frank Sinatra missing various notes in a Vegas show but usually looking very relaxed and natural while doing it.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
4 months
@nickyotissmith @shalashaska098 Not foul play. The learning curve.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
5 months
@redsteeze It's Trump's show. Doesn't matter who the Biden partisan moderators or station is. He'll ignore all that.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
5 months
Mine: A buddy of mine since 1979 passed away at 71. Michael Yockel, a Baltimore pop culture fixture for decades, was a fine writer and editor, brooked no sloppiness, and though opinionated, was always polite. Today, a rarity. @MoustacheClubUS .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
2 years
I'm a peon in Twitter World, but still don't like malicious hackers. Which happened to me last Sat. Twitter "support" was off for the weekend and no help. My warning story (w/new acct.). @MoustacheClubUS , @JeffreyStClair3 , @markgjudge , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
28 days
Mine: MSM doesn't believe 1st Amendment applies to everyone, evidenced by almost no coverage of Backpage sentencing last week. Only @reason and @stephenlemons followed the disgraceful trial. @MoustacheClubUS .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
10 months
New @nickyotissmith : @NickPinkerton on The Sweet East, swindlers, diminished expectations, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and the state of American cinema in the 2020s.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
6 months
One of the most joyous songs of early-1960s. Dusty Springfield: "I Only Wanna Be With You,' (1963). via @YouTube
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
Mine: There are two rules for the 1st Amendment: those that Beltway pundits champion, and... well that's it. MSM ignores Backpage trial and Jim Larkin's suicide. @MattWelch wrote well about it. @MoustacheClubUS .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
Mine: The death last week of Jim Larkin, victim (along with Mike Lacey) of government persecution for championing the First Amendment, shows there are 2 sets of rules in America. I knew Jim since '79, and he was a journalistic giant. @MoustacheClubUS .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
New @stephenlemons : On the fifth anniversary of their arrests due to their former ownership of Backpage, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin still refuse to bow before the federal government.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
Congratulations to my colleague and longtime friend @CrispinSartwell on his marriage to the talented artist Jane Irish.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
8 months
@soundstoryuk What She Said (maybe best Smiths song, period), I Want the One I Can't Have and Meat is Murder. It's a record with no clunkers.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
4 months
There are many publications/websites I don't like, but when there are layoffs at liberal sites, it's rude for conservatives to rejoice. It'd be more decent to hold your tongue when somebody loses their job.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
7 months
Mine: Nasty people all over. Had a day without power because a tree fell on a garage and owner wouldn't permit removal. No courtesy at Safeway or ATM machine. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
She never made another song I liked, but this one will forever, and rightfully so, capture a part of the 1980s. Cyndi Lauper—Girls Just Want To Have Fun. via @YouTube
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
3 months
Wilson Pickett: "634-5789." via @YouTube
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
Mine: Taking a cue from @jasongay , I wrote about little league umpires getting abused by hyperactive parents, and the contrast between today and LL in my youth. Pic below is of my son's team. What year is it? @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
7 months
My latest: It’s a rhetorical question, but when did people, now living in cocoons, become so nasty? The answer is the beginning of time, but living in the moment, there are several monkeys to get off my back.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
8 months
@berningman16 @maggie0405 @RollingStone Rolling Stone barely exists, not worthy of mention. Run by four guys in a living room sharing a laptop and case of shitty beer.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
2 years
My favorite "Wall of Sound" single: "He's A Rebel"—The Crystals 1962. via @YouTube
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
8 months
My latest: It's just a matter of time before Democratic media, specifically NYT, take off gloves and editorialize that Biden MUST retire, "for good of country" and, goes without saying, democracy.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
My latest: Picayune complaint, but the "acknowledgements" in books drive me nuts if they're the length of a short story. Nash Jenkins' okay novel "Foster Dade" is guilty; Emma Cline's excellent The Guest isn't. @MoustacheClubUS .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
9 months
Mine: Pretty in Pink (1986), written by Hughes, might be the worst of those “teen” movies of the 1980s. It’s a silly "class division" story in what I’d suppose was “penetrating” social commentary for the Reagan Years. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
Mine: The best “quite literal” theory was that Musk was limiting Twitter “reading limits” because of the mayhem in France. That was a Jack Benny/Eric Bogosian/Jackie Mason/Mrs. Maisel routine. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
6 months
Mine: On rare occasions I'll read an Atlantic story and they usually blow. But a survey of "Great American Novels" was a decent time-killer. And my fave novel so far in 2024 is @ColinBarrett82 's Wild Houses. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
5 months
Mine: The ongoing NPR controversy is thin. I agree that public money shouldn't go to the network, but "defund!" critics are apoplectic over a trifling sum. Amtrak and USPS are better targets for cutting off the spigot. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
9 months
@RockNRoLL_85 Sound & Vision and Station to Station.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
2 months
My latest: I never trusted any journalist in the Robert Redford-1970s who didn’t, at least twice, pop some quarters into a “adult bookstore” video booth or spent an evening out at a low-rent strip club.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
4 months
"Synergy," a word you couldn't escape in the 1990s, has nearly vanished. I guess because there's nothing to "synergize."
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
Mine: Since it's hard to tell real "news" from the fake, is The Hollywood strike a hoax? I jest, but little coverage. No room with RFK Jr., still Trump and Randi Weingarten bringing brown bags of cash to Ukraine. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
5 months
Mine: Maybe Starbucks will circle the drain, maybe not, but it bugs me when it, Peets or “indie” cafes are credited for “introducing coffee-culture” in the 90s. Look at any movie or TV show from before the 70s and characters are drinking coffee at dinner.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
6 months
Little Anthony & The Imperials: "Going Out Of My Head." via @YouTube
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
5 months
Barbara Lewis: "Hello Stranger." via @YouTube
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
Robert Mirabal—"The Dance." via @YouTube
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
8 months
New @BillAsher18 : History requires that Harvard drive out the darkness of the present danger. Honor requires that Harvard not stop until the darkness is gone. Only then will Harvard reclaim the light. Only then will Harvard be a great institution.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
6 months
I'll never understand why people spoil reasonable posts by starting out, "I'm so old..." Perhaps they want to be accepted the "club."
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Russ Smith
4 months
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Russ Smith
17 days
Mine: It’s easy to dunk on social conservative J.D. Vance—a bad pick for Trump—but mocking the no-longer-hillbilly for wearing a shirt while swimming, as loads did after pictures surfaced last week, is stupid. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
@lofcr1 Kid Charlemagne.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
6 months
Mine: British pundit Matthew Parris is strong advocate for "assisted dying," claiming old, infirm people are a burden on the state. He doesn't touch young people with fatal diseases because then he'd be called a crank. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
Joe Jackson—Steppin' Out. via @YouTube
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
Mine: In a so-so @NewYorker essay about brilliant Milton Glaser, Adam Gopnik (66), shows he knows nothing about Bob Dylan. Glaser's Dylan poster made him an icon in 1967? Dylan psychedelic? The singer hated all that.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
My latest: my friend @CrispinSartwell has bugaboo about The Atlantic; I reserve my ire for other sites. But a flash obit of Martin Amis in Atlantic was so off-kilter, I was drawn in. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
6 months
Mine: It's just April and a bored media, with Biden/Trump static, inventing new "narratives," such as a NYSun edit saying 2024 Dem convention in Chicago could be worse than '68. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
@willcollier @NaumannErik I went to the first Earth Day in 1970. Was in 9th grade, got off school early, listened to bands in the park, smoked some weed, mostly ignored the speakers, had a ball.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
8 months
Mine: I have no animosity towards people who choose not to have kids; it's personal. Glad that I'm a dad and my parents had five boys. Pic below is the 5 of us horsing around in our cookie-cutter yard. What year is it? @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
2 years
I've started a new account after being hacked on Saturday. Hope old followers will continue suit. @MoustacheClubUS , @EminaMelonic , @trumwill , @whorevidal , @JJouka , @StephenSilver , @ToddSeavey .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
11 months
"Hot Little Mama," Johnny "Guitar" Watson. via @YouTube
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
9 months
@davrola @batcountry1980 And Gasoline Alley and his work with Jeff Beck on Truth were even better than this breakout record.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
@Gormogons I don’t believe Rubin is real. A Washington Post prank.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
My latest: Fiction factory Joyce Carol Oates doesn't know anyone who pledged allegiance to the flag. I did, so did my kids, @CrispinSartwell , @JJouka and millions. Oates thinks maybe it's a Southern tradition. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
@davrola @SpliceToday2022 As a kid, I collected political buttons, still have 200 or so. I Like Ike, JFK, Nixon, Rocky, Wallace, Muskie, HHH, McCarthy, etc. A friend of my mom’s gave me a 1936 Alf Landon button.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
Latest: Granville wasn’t privy to my publishing plans, but at Club Charles one night took me aside, and said: “You should sell City Paper, man, and we’ll start a paper in New York, just sleep on couches and run it guerilla-style. That’s the ticket, man.”
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
The Doors: "Love Street." via @YouTube
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
9 months
New @smithapril : I walk down the street in my “progressive” neighborhood and hear people in casual conversation say that Israel should be wiped off the map.
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
"Hurt So Bad"—Little Anthony & The Imperials. via @YouTube
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
7 months
Mine: USA's education system is in tatters; that's why some are posting stories about teachers (or books and albums) that "changed (or saved) their life." True for a tiny minority, but otherwise hyperbole. And obnoxious. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
1 year
Mine: Wasn't a fan, but agree with @JeffreyStClair3 that Jimmy Buffett's music was innocuous. But unlike other recently-departed musicians, his brilliant marketing of lifestyle sets him apart. @MoustacheClubUS .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
5 months
My Mother's Day story from 2009: "I recall those May Sundays from the 1960s when Mom would wake up beaming, and every year she’d proclaim the batch of daffodils that my brothers and I plucked from our spotty garden as 'the best bouquet yet!'"
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
10 months
My latest: When I read “news stories” in legacy media, it’s not a stretch to wonder if they’re produced largely by ChatGPT, with perhaps a reporter or editor’s minimal participation. @MoustacheClubUS , @TomJoyceSports .
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@MUGGER2023
Russ Smith
10 months
Via D. Martin: As a too-young garbage collector, I became familiar with maggots. We were a large family and luckily the fridge was always full. If not eaten right away, leftovers could hide and might stay in the fridge until they started growing fur.
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