If People Will Just Keep Paying Attention To Dee Snider, He Won't Have To Keep Slamming Other Musicians

Poor Dee Snider just can't wrap his mind around how Vince Neil escaped significant jail time after his 1984 conviction for vehicular manslaughter. Making a booze run in the middle of a party, Vince drove a car with his blood alcohol content significantly north of the legal limit, hitting another car and killing his passenger, Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle, and permanently disabling two women. Vince ended up doing about two weeks time in L.A. County Jail, in addition to copping five years probation and a $2 million tab for restitution. Now, if that were my brother who Vince killed, you bet I'd be pissed off watching that singer spend the next ten years prancing around in ladies' underwear while singing about sex, drugs and rock and roll. But Dee... why you gotta drag that shit up thirty-two years after the fact? Hell man, if it's crime and punishment that's on your mind, why not address one of Vince's more current arrests, like his 2011 domestic violence charges or his 2010 conviction for DUI (spoiler alert, Dee - he only served ten days).We don't need Dr. Drew to point out that poor Vince has had the ever-loving shit kicked out of him by Demon Rum and unless he gets his act together and gives a balls-out run at sobriety, he'll be lucky to reach his 60s with two feet and a working liver. Nor does anybody need to point out the face-palming inequity of dudes doing more time in jail for pot possession, when Vince not only killed somebody, but he kept on drinking and driving!So why is Dee now discussing this in the press? According to Blabbermouth, Dee has nursed a bit of a grudge that people disregarded him because he didn't party like Vince and the Crue. Specifically, the Twisted Sister frontman lamented, "Vince Neil could go and literally kill someone in a car accident. There were two other women who were in a van who were permanently crippled from that famous car accident that killed Razzle from Hanoi Rocks. And people are cool with that. They're like, 'Yeah, all right! Rock 'n' roll!!' And the guy didn't do any serious jail time. I'm, like, 'Really? Really? He's a murderer.' I don't get that at all."I don't personally know anybody who's "cool with that," and I can't for a minute imagine that anyone would be, but Dee must run in different circles, where DUI fatalities are celebrated with boozy salutes of "Yeah, alright! Rock 'n' roll!" Poor Dee continues to slip into "Hey you kids, get off my lawn!" territory, seemingly incapable of abiding a world that unfolds without regard to his permission and approval. For example, Dee thinks it's a steaming pile of hippo shit when some dude joins a band that used to be big, but that isn't big anymore, and the new guy runs around telling people he's in the band (because he is). The rule apparently is that if you had nothing to do with the band's early (or only) successes, then you need to shut the fuck up and play your instrument and if anybody mentions how great your band is, you need to poke that idiot right in the chest, really, really hard and remind them that even though you're in the band now, you're not fit to spray Aqua Net on the spiky bouffants of the roadies of the guys who wrote those original tunes. Basically, if you didn't make the band famous, don't act like you're in the band. Poor Doug Aldrich, from Whitesnake (BUT NOT THE WHITESNAKE WHO WERE REALLY BIG IN THE 80S), ran afoul of Dee's Unspoken Life Code when he did something nuts like smiled during a show or acted like he was actually in Whitesnake (because he is). Dee wasn't having it and laid into him on Twitter. God Love him, but Doug Aldrich refused to cower in shame, instead responding with the best Twitter comeback of 2015. Props to Dee for his response and by recent accounts, the two musicians are now bros to the end.By the way, people who use the phrase "just sayin'" all need a good, hard cock punching.  I've got a boatload of respect for Dee. At the PMRC hearings, his First Amendment defense of music shattered notions that "heavy metal" musicians — as those dudes were considered back then — were knuckle-dragging louts with nary a functioning brain cell. And I enjoyed the hell out of Dee's book, which I've recommended to others on many occasions. And by the way, the guy can still carry a tune. But what I like most about Dee is that behind his clumsy, overblown sanctimony, he's a genuinely good guy. At a music awards ceremony in L.A. a couple years back, he took it upon himself to sequester an up-and-coming band backstage — a band who were getting tons of shit heaped on them by noisy, judgmental, self-proclaimed old-timers (because nobody likes those types, Dee), and the Twisted Sister frontman just broke it down for these kids and offered them the sort of practical, no-bullshit advice that only someone who's been through the wars can offer. That's the Dee Snider that comes to mind when I hear that name. And yeah, Twisted Sister are a heritage act now — nobody's seriously looking to them for new music anymore — but I'd still go see them in a heartbeat.But Dee, the next time you start to slam somebody in an interview, consider this wonderful piece of advice a friend once shared with me: never pass up an opportunity to keep your mouth shut.