Last night I dreamt that I read Morrissey’s Autobiography. With no company I devoured it in a week after getting it from Albi for my birthday. The debate whether its worthy of being designated a Classic seems irrelevant given his huge cultural influence over 30 years in both music and in spreading the gospel of vegetarianism. I’d love to see a global poll of people who stopped eating meat based on Meat is Murder as I did (with some lapses) in ’88. In defence of Penguin’s appointment a reviewer cited his eloquence. See: theguardian/books/2013/nov/13/autobiography-by-morrissey-review Very much agreed but when he gets pages into score settling the affect wanes. Not that I don’t feel his pain – which really is the point of his life’s work isn’t it? Nevertheless he’s waited a long time to speak his truth, especially on the High Court judgement brought on him by one of the other Smiths and how it followed no reason of the evidence and specifically maligned him. Shows the British justice system as farcical and my sister in law has recently become a Judge. I think the most wretched sentiment was expressed about blameless Madeline McCann. You cannot compare a missing child case in the current media saturated era with child abduction/murder on the Moors. One family’s grief over the unthinkable does not trump another’s. He seemed unhappy with the death notice of a musical influence reads to him as if to obscure that he was HIV positive when it clearly and correctly stated that he had died of AIDS related complications. Why the bother? You would think Elton John would have sorted him out on that one. The poor work ethic of the New York Dolls reunited under his steam is likened to Great Kills itinerants. Only one of the Dolls hailed from Staten Island, David Johansen who was from West Brighton given he attended our alma mater SHS (Sam’s Hotdog Stand). Bizarrely there is a strong connection to the island as Morrissey’s sister lived there in the 70’s, “in a large wooden house dramatically positioned in the midst of a tricky swampland area.” That doesn’t actually narrow it down much. He recounts being on SI in in the summer of ’76 when hurricane Belle struck. I remember being evacuated from our vacation on Long Beach Island, NJ, where having not even reached 5 ft yet had been body surfing in the most enormous waves ever, back to SI to sit it out. The one photo of his Mum in the book shows her wading in the lower bay off the south shore. Hope she showered afterwards! I relish the imagined journey of gawky young Stephen from my home island then just a few years later during his exile in South London onto the Old Kent Road where my wife would soon break free. With all his reported desperation to meet Shelagh Delaney, who we know was too shy to grant him an audience, he only mentions her once as saying something to him about his life. I have never seen him live but his accounts of his fan base and their descent on spaces where outsiders outnumber everyone else are compelling particularly, “all the lazy dykes commandeering the corner in a universe that denies their existence.” The mutual embrace of chicanas and chicanos is a piece of evidence in his quest to dismiss allegations of racism but then there on the back cover we see he was awarded the keys to the city of Tel Aviv so that’s not conclusive. Recommended for former fans and sycophantic slags.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 09:56:32 +0000
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