Life After Morrissey

 I’m not one of you. I don’t share this problem with you; I am not a fan of Morrisey or The Smiths. I don’t like their music, I never understood the appeal. I wouldn’t even want to be in a room with them. I can be that judgemental but fuck it, I have found the best music by being discerning, and I have found the best music by not being discerning.

“It’s hard to be a man. It’s made to be hard and I don’t know why. I think it’s easier to be a woman. The women’s movement has been so successful; the men’s movement has never been accepted. I think it’s not wanted.”

Morrisey

You have to be someone a bit special to do the one name thing. The way you are sure you have earned it is to have a complete name known, but that your fans don’t use it. I don’t know if Morrisey is entirely secretive about his name but he is private. I don’t think that he has a silly name, and I don’t think a silly name would stop him, one compliment I will give him is that he could have gotten through his life with a stupid name, not there really is such a thing as stupid names.

Morrisey will never be a Lemmy, Iommi, Madonna, Prince, Iggy, Keef, Suggs, Twiggy, Rooney or even a Liam or a Noel. Who only manage the name thing when mentioned together, which probably gives eyeache. 

The reason I made a point about paying a compliment is because there won’t be any more. I want to help you move on and paying tribute to what will be behind you won’t help that. We should look at where we are standing. This is a crossroads. Which is appropriate as we are talking about music. Behind us is Smithdom, in front of you there are three paths. One of them is a path of darkness, the trees allow no life. It is a path of pungent opium smoke, fire coloured spiders, low ebbing sounds but a sense in the distance that there is much sex and violence in reward for taking the adventerous path. The second path is one that Three Imaginary Boys will lead you on, a path of hairspray and lipstick applied in a rush. The third path we will talk about when we get there.

The obvious first point is how we came to be standing here together. Well, really, why are you standing here? I am here for you to read. Why are you standing here?

Here we are in Morrisey’s shoes. They are sad, dark brown loafers with nothing to say, and people say the clothes maketh the man! Maybe getting your shoes from the same chainstore as Nigel Farage gets his sandals means that not only does style rub off when you are with such esteemed fashion icons, but you can also share notes on messiah complexes. If I could see past the end of my red Doc Marten’s then I would be down there with you lads. Maybe I could get some shoes in case I want to start teaching geography in two thousand and two. What is the point of having a messiah complex if you are going to be understated in your dress? The humble “one of us!” messiah has been done already, my messianic fantasies involve threatening heels.

What was the appeal that got you to explore Morrisey and The Smiths, what are the enduring qualities that could make it hard to move on? I will continue to not show any respect for Morrisey, and to a far lesser extent The Smiths. What I don’t want to do is show disrespect to you, I am honoured by you reading this far.

“If I met Vic Reeves, I’d have no desire other than to smack him in the face.”

Morrisey

Morrisey may be the reason you are a vegetarian, a proud bookworm or any other kind of misfit in our world. The late twentieth century had as many awkward weirdos as there have always been and a space of culture away from Punk, Heavy  Metal or Football was definitely needed at the time. Well done for getting into reading and music when so many other scenes didn’t come without violence.

You have chosen a hill to fight on, and I admire that, but you don’t need to live and die for Morrisey. You don’t have to feel anything when people like me badmouth Morrisey. You don’t have to test your own patience for mockery. At no point have I known Morrisey to seem to do anything nice for his fans, so I don’t know why any fan would defend him. An attack on Morrisey isn’t an attack on Indie music, it is not an attack on Manchester or Salford. He is enough of a bastard to ensure that all the fire stays right on the woodpile at his feet and nobody else needs to be burned. So step aside and let me start my ultimate barbeque party!

Beyond the rubbish tunes, posturing and woe-is-me preening, by far the greatest reason to turn to better, brighter, lights to follow is Morissey's blatant support of the far right. You're a fan, you know the list, I'm sure better than I do. National Front disco, dodgy iconography and pin badges. Let alone what's actually come out of his mouth. I can't bring myself to delve into his filthy, nationalistic laundry any further. But my question is - why hasn't all this enough to turn your back on him and his gladioli for good?

You may even think he is just being a troll and think that is something to admire. There are some excellent trolls out there who succeed in winding up prudes and make light of political correctness without empowering fascists. There is a very wide margin to do this in and the establishment nowadays is more shocked by islamophobia being challenged than condemned. David Cameron said The Queen is Dead is his favourite album. Go fuck a pig with your bestie if you think that Morrisey is anything but sicophantic towards the ruling classes. 

“If you call someone racist in modern Britain you are telling them that you have run out of words. You are shutting the debate down and running off. The word is meaningless now. Everyone ultimately prefers their own race … does this make everyone racist?”

Morrisey

What you have right now is the opportunity to turn your back on Morrisey and become a better person. That is the power of heroes, you can toss them aside more easily than idols. If you have idolized Morrisey, the experience may have more pain in store. Let’s pull on that plaster as he hasn’t really earned your respect or interest. What you will be losing is a miserable, bitter, bigoted old git. There isn’t going to be another relevant record or book, don’t wait for one. Explore something else and find a way to fill the Morrisey shaped hole in your life. That hole may be shaped like a four pint jug of milk with a bunch of flowers through the handle. Don’t fill your Morrisey hole with that, maybe put that in the fridge of a fellow Morrisey fan to broach the subject that you are moving on. The posters are coming down and the CDs are going to the charity shop. 

 Now that your bedroom is free of Morrisey merch, lets turn down the lights and explore that first path. I hope the melodrama tempted you suitably. Something I have likely repeated is that Morrisey is miserable. I can’t hate anyone just for being miserable, except for myself every now and then. Some miserable misfits are not lost in sadness, they are lost in thought and appear melancholic. You will still not be alone, enter Glenn Danzig.

What is the difference between Danzig and Morrisey? Danzig is athletic and gothic. Morrisey is fey and at heart a lad. What do they have in common? Why am I bringing someone who would be avoided at any indie disco? Because you should stop going to indie discos! They are the number one cause of Morrisey popularity, people wear Meat is Murder shirts there like they don’t deserve a drink chucked over their head and dance to “This charming man” a song by four not charming men.

Danzig started off as the driving force of a unique band that took the poetry and outrageousness of its genre to another level, transcending expectations and limits, then he went on to form a band that used his own last name and continued his career with his incredibly forceful and driven personality. Sound familiar? 

One fun thing about Morrisey is that his singing style is so distinctive that a perfectly recognisable impression of him can be done by just making noises. His wet, yearning, cringeworthy mewl is a fun noise to make. I often do it as one of my substitutes to whistling while I am pottering about. The same can be done with Danzig. His forceful woahing and growling is as easy to do and it feels much better. When I am washing up and I let out a long Woah! Or growling Go! I feel much more empowered than when I am doing a Morrisey. There is a lot to be said for good posture and it is essential for Danziging and gets in the way of a good Morrisey. Which seems wrong as they are both posturing, but Morrisey’s posture is so grounded it doesn’t feel like it has a point.

Danzig does everything better than Morrisey but something they both do is display excellent wit in interviews. Morrisey however is a sad old poser, he shows a lot of spite to music journalists, I think this is more to do with him failing as one and his awareness that they are on a mission to out him as a fascist. Danzig however is a grumpy old school bastard who simply does not want to be nice and does not get along to get along, he looks like the cousin of Skeletor for a reason. Rather than being a dick in interviews for the sake of his persona, he can on occasion be charming, I am yet to see a single interview with Morrisey like this. The old twat can’t even have tea with Victoria Wood and be civil with her. I don’t know why she tolerated it.

With Danzig you won’t need to leave behind the rude outspoken elements, as he has those in spades. Danzig is quick witted and shows no respect to any journalists who he feels are wasting his time. He has never gone off on one about racism, sexism or nationalism. When he says something dumb, nobody else gets hurt and no fascists feel any empowerment. 

Not keen on Danzig? Too many muscles? Too American? Too punk? All easily understood, I wouldn’t have interrupted the Morrisey train with only one alternative method of transport. Like the drudgery of a rail replacement bus service, this next choice is one you will most likely be familiar with. Robert Smith! I’m sure you saw him coming into this, but as long as you stay in the Morrisey camp he bears mentioning. I can’t see why anyone would choose Morrisey’s personality or music over Robert Smith’s. It probably has something to do with the magnitude of Johnny Marr. Something I have never really understood, but I feel that The Cure have been hampered slightly by none of the band’s other personalities getting or wanting as much attention. When I saw them live it was the first time Roger O’Donnell had played with them in over a decade. That wasn’t a big drama that people would be shocked to see subside like the fallout between Marr and Morrisey, instead it meant that O’Donnell was first to the stage and the set drew heavily from the material he was responsible for. It was great. None of the drama was needed. The music has got that covered. Whereas Morrisey would be the tabloid darling all over again if something like that happened. It would be like the Gallagher brothers had decided to make up with each other and admit they were driving the scooters that chased Princess Diana through the Alma tunnel. That was dark, but I am trying to keep the attention of people who might listen to a Morrisey interview and not pull their hair out. They need saving the most.

When Robert Smith talks he doesn’t stick his chin up for all the mortals to gaze, he is genuinely a shy goth. Shy goths have always been the real poets of England. Not effeminate bullies like Morrisey. If your national pride comes into things like this, then you should still be happier if they made a special edition stamp collection of The Cure than The Smiths. Although that is less likely to happen for The Cure because after all this time they still have punk credibility. The first gig Robert Smith played was at his Catholic boys school and they kicked him out and blamed him for the riot that followed. The first gig The Smiths played was at a fashion show. I don’t wanna knock fashion but it just doesn’t stand up to being one of the best reasons to get kicked out of school.

The biggest difference I can spot between Robert Smith and Morrisey is that I would trust Robert Smith to babysit kids. I would also hug him if I got the chance. Maybe you like The Cure and The Smiths / Morrisey. They definitely don’t like both, so I think they would appreciate you taking a side. 

Maybe some water needs to go under some bridges. Maybe you didn’t like it when Robert Smith had something to say about Morrisey, or someone with a Boys Don’t Cry badge? Maybe the big meanie at the indie disco who ran off with your boyfriend was a card carrying member of The Cure fanclub? Get over it! It’s old news! Stop considering indie discos to be viable choices of venue for a date!

Put some music by The Cure on because I am going to tell you about the third path. Better yet, put on the music by a real underdog! Morrisey may have fooled you by feigning being wounded, but he wasn’t kicked when he was down. Not hard enough anyway! His fans may have taken a lot of licks from skinheads in the dark ages but he probably drinks tea with those same skinheads while they all fawn over racist jokes, of which I am sure he knows many.

The eighties were a goldmine for artistic underdogs. People who really were on your side. I know that memories fade, especially if the eighties were as hedonistic as they look from my era, but it wasn’t all Kylie Minogue, Duran Duran and Wham! It wasn’t all pop. You have your pick of excellent contemporaries. The Cure are my first choice but you also have interesting and outspoken weirdos like Julian Cope, Billy Bragg, Jimbob, Edwyn Collins, Bobby Gillespie, Michael Stipe, Thurston Moore, J Mascis, David Byrne, Ian McCulloch and Jaz Coleman. That’s just the men! Where are the adoring and defensive fans that Siouxsie Sioux deserves? The eighties had an amazing range of women who could fill your Morrisey hole; Debbie Harry, Alice Bag (Alice counts double if its the Latin American connection that drew you to Morrisey), Pauline Black, Chrissie Hynde and Viv Albertine. Viv Albertine has also written books that are much better than Morrisey’s. Funnier, sweeter and more heartbreaking, which with Morrisey isn’t saying much as a slug could have written a more relatable biography. I would wash my hands less thoroughly from slug slime in comparison to Morrisey’s sweat too. 

I have mentioned thirty-four artists that aren’t Morrisey in this rant so far. That’s thirty-four people who are better people than Morrisey, and I even count Madonna in that! Please, get a better hero because it’s not hard. Then you can get rid of your Smiths shirts and treat yourself to some new shirts, preferably from some fun gigs. Then you can wear them to indie discos because you shouldn’t stop going to them because I said so. I mean who do I think I am? Morrisey?

Maybe you are beyond caring and past reaching. Maybe you don’t care what Morrisey does and it’s all about the music for you? I don’t know if you have been reading closely but I have mentioned the incredible music of The Cure more times than has really been necessary. If this is your attitude then why not just double down? Join the Varg Vikernes fanclub! Buy some of GG Allin’s blood soaked Y-Fronts on Ebay! Buy the inevitable Misfits shirt in Proudboy black and gold from Michale Graves! Pull on people's emotions to question the abuse allegations of Michael Jackson! Don’t fight the man in the mirror! Just keep on wasting your affections and cash on terrible people. Speaking of, should I get Frankenstein mugs or shirts made up first? Then you can chuck that in the bin if I end up doing something awful! Because ditching things like that isn’t a big loss, there is always a better person to support.

Gammon For Dinner

 It’s been a lot of fun. They are pink, they are thick and when they get more angry they get more pink. It’s fucking perfect. I don’t want an end to the joke. I am not an advocate for politeness. I just know there is a kind of gammon that we should actually show unity to. Although a lot of them will have moved on, sold out (sorry grown up) and forgotten the fight they would have once had, there is definitely a core of punk rockers and those with memories of unions before Thatcher who would like to see some youth with the bollocks they had.

These gammon have been isolated from the political discussion by political correctness. Which I see as just a form of good manners. By condescending their generation with an updated lexicon you have handed them over to the right wing vultures. They haven’t wasted any time swooping in, giving them their own safe space. Where they can talk the way they always have and engage in political ideas at the same time. Trouble is, they are engaging with liars. They are being gaslighted by the right to the beat of all their favourite tunes. With all of their favourite food and refreshments (gammon).

Somewhere along the way we stopped laughing with each other. I don’t expect trans people or any other people with a british target on their back to laugh and smile and joke along, but those of us with the thicker skin and skulls should stay in the fight. I’m not going to laugh at some shitty joke at a refugees expense but if it comes to a conversation with the right person, I am going to just get them to get back to the point. I especially won’t give a fuck if they want to take the piss out of me. That’s how gammons make friends. We all need a safe space for politics and before that safe space becomes parler or just the daily mail in their van. I know they are used to getting what they want all the time, but its going to take some patience. That’s why you gotta pick your battles well, because we all only have so much of that. These are people who have a different concept of what respect is to me, but I can understand what they want.

I think that to turn the tide with gammons we are going to need a combination of three things to happen. Then they may not end up exactly “woke” but at least they won’t be fucking alseep or licking boots to thier own detriment.

The first thing we will need is for more of the boomers to die. Stay with me here, it gets bleaker. There were less rights for children when they were growing up as there was for millennials. Although their politics have certainly betrayed this trend when it comes to school aged britons now. They are more scared of their own parents than we are of ours. A lot of them have got some old codger breathing down their neck making sure they don’t do anything that doesn’t seem british, much like the scrutiny they might have put on us to ensure fragile masculinity or an imbalanced work ethic are passed on. You know how it is and it will be a lot easier for them to ignore a ghost or a photo on the table.

Next they are going to need reassurance that a left wing world will have a lot more of the things they like in it than they think. I know I am going to be generalizing here but come on, anglo saxons aren’t complicated and they are proud of that. They are already easily conflated with a cut of pork. I can definitely still see a place for football and barbeque in the world I want to be a part of. I genuinely think that their lives will improve and these men who are so afraid of being de emasculated will thrive in a less authoritarian world. All the Dad and lad stuff they enjoy so much will be more permissible. My Dad certainly laments that there has always been so much less I could get away with. I should ask him what he would get up to with no laws as he is drug free but pretty out there. A lot of Gammons would make excellent union leaders and reps, if they love confrontation and respect from their peers, the stone will required of such people would be fulfilled by men who feel politically sidelined and are angry about the state of their country. So angry they’ve gone pink, so is it really worse to be called pinko than gammon?

The third thing that is needed is a safe space, but for fucks sake never call it that in front of a gammon, they will flip their pineapple. They definitely have some snowflake tendencies but calling them out on it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. They have made some mistakes, and the gammon worth reaching are clever enough to know it. However, the football culture in our country has made it hard to lose in front of your mates. Hard to admit you were wrong. Most of all it is hard to go through the mental transition that people think is an insult called hypocrisy. All being a hypocrite means is someone has realized they have been wrong about something and there is a delay between this revelation and their behavior catching up with their new values. Bringing their values into line with logic and behavior. This can be a painful experience and political vultures will always make a dinner of someone’s cognitive dissonance. They can take the pain away by doubling down on the belief and forgetting the logic. It is easier than making the adjustments to ones life that can fit in with what they understand as right and wrong, so they give control. Your local conservative party candidate (Donna Jones - No Relation) or even UKIP, Qanon or Britain first recruiter will have the patience to convert their beliefs to make them comfortable, rather than allow their own will to take the challenge of living as they start to believe. Do not underestimate how valuable your favourite gammon would be to a fringe group. There is something worse than seeing a grown gammon cry and thats a gammon who never cries. Start the conversation with just them, ask them how you think their political decisions are panning out, in relation to some suffering or damage caused that you can expect them to understand. Let them climb down from their position of political superiority in the current climate. Don’t knock them off the top. Take things calmly, let them think that the fight is over, that the time for ‘unity’ is beginning. Let them concede their mistake by degrees and you will build a better ally (don’t fucking call them that too early!) as they will have taken the same logical route to political literacy you have. If they are aggressive when it comes to things like this, or they develop political theory and have decided where they stand without the help of a corrupting media then maybe just fuck them off. As, like I said, I don’t want to end the joke and there better be some gammons left to laugh at. Oink Oink!

Artwork by Beezus Castiel for Facebook Group - A Group where we all Pretend to be Gammon

Conservatism is a Cargo Cult

A cargo cult is an occurrence of an increase in religious fervour and change in iconography due to an outside influence. The arrival of technology that has not been possible because the minds and generations that developed and innovated were cut off from the populations. Geography usually plays a big part, cults occur on remote islands. During war time machinery was stored on islands of the south pacific by soldiers and contractors. Their symbology provoked questions from natives and their ignorance left them open to be exploited by contractors and soldiers. The men and equipment would be redeployed and the natives, stuck by ignorance to religious explanation of phenomena, will put their ritual efforts into recreating the perceived prosperity of the meeting of the soldiers. The most obvious cargo cult that I have witnessed is the Christianity brought by Romans to the shores of Britain. The cargo cults most closely studied by academics are from the most remote points of the British empire. Many of them even hold up members of the British royal family as sacred icons. Just like my dear old Granny.

The modern conservative party of Great Britain was the party in power when I came into this world, along with all other awful toxic things like search under suspicion laws and U2’s Joshua Tree album. The modern party was founded by Robert Peel in 1834. The current party has roots not just from its aristocratic and party history, there is also a considerable nationalist presence within the present party, that if conservatives were better people, there would be a lot more embarrassment and scandal over. That is a story for another day though.

The UK is a great distance from USA in many ways but we do end up taking in a lot of their news and politics. A lot more than those of our real neighbours Ireland and France. It seems surprising that a cult like qanon that is built upon mystifying politics in the USA. Like the cargo cults of old being impressed by medicine and combustion engines, now we have people impressed by belligerent trolling and red baseball caps. Twenty first century progress! Here we are though, in December a survey was made that found one in four of the people interviewed were believers in qanon related conspiracy. We could be in for the long haul on this, we have a large Mormon and scientologist population in the UK who seem to make equally less sense outside of USA borders and politics. Just as the Celts turned their noses up at Christianity until the sword was brought to them, we need to keep our guard up around the shit people want to put in our heads. So many of us manage to stay away from illegal drugs apparently so we have the practice.

Speaking of shit. There are two kinds of conservatism. Bad and worse. Conservatism that is concerned with the conservation of economies, particularly the interests of landlords and military industrialists, the second kind is social conservatism. Social conservatism is concerned with a return to traditional values. Well, some peoples tradition is Christian, not most of us but you get what I mean. These are the conservatives who have used political power to create theocratic laws like anti abortion laws, lacklustre slavery laws and confusing patriotism with nationalism. All that wholesome Christian shit. In my lifetime I have seen the pendulum of American politics make its laboured yet short swings between the Republican party and the Liberal party a fair few times. People cry at these election results in the thousands, they are a sweet and sentimental people after all. The nation that gave us Bambi. All they really achieve by voting and parading like this is a change in the brand of conservatism that they put a tremendous amount of effort and labour into. Americans are never lazy but when it comes to priorities they really take the biscuit. Or cookie?

We are at risk of becoming the same way. We have more than one generation of comfortable adults who are politically illiterate because of anti communist propaganda being shoved down their throats. So much so that they are unable to grasp the concept of a more immediate and local threat, fascism. They didn’t vote fascism (this year!) but when a chance came to decry fascism they were much more angered by thievery and vandalism. Purposely misunderstanding the Black Lives Matter movement and political statement. They were all so sure that there are no issues of race in the united kingdom that they believed a movement like black lives matter was a racist movement. Made to create the kind of division and problems that America faces. As if those problems were created by African Americans! Racist groups rebranded as White Lives Matter, enablers of racists were unable to visit social media without saying all lives matter and so called Lads made a point of their side being a patriarchal choice and made the illusion that political flexibility through understanding issues as they are presented to you as being unmanly, unbritish and untrustworthy. Thanks for protecting those statues that no one had any interest in harming lads. Shows the lads have really looked at the history, emotion and political meaning of tearing down statues of slavers and imperialists. Nothing like protecting history with ignorance, so far so good!

The Labour party in the UK was built up from an alliance of trade unions and socialist parties. This is what it should always continue to be made of. Instead it has recognized the overwhelming voting power of the rural middle class and has developed into the world’s most palatable opposition. Palatable for the conservative party. A push towards socialism was attempted and the party made great headways amongst younger people in the UK. Since that loss it has walked a path of compromise and appeasement. Labour didn’t effectively stand up to the press’ campaign of slander. Mystifying the public into misunderstanding the difference between anti Zionist or anti capitalist beliefs and statements for anti semitism. It would have been less than half the work to expose the anti islamic core of the conservative party but half the amount of people would have cared and the press would have been paid half as much. Keir Starmer is now attempting to heal the rift by recruiting Mossad agents (Think Israeli KGB or CIA) into government jobs. That is a job that could have been fulfilled by a British Islamophobe who has been trained in deception and murder. Taking our jobs! 

The ground work on a political pendulum that creaks between two kinds of conservatism has been laid. If you don’t want to clap for the NHS or Stasi like immigration forces in the UK then it is time to wash the scales from your eyes. I am done pandering for concessions. We need to work on being ungovernable. We need to experience real democracy from the ground up in our own communities. Otherwise we will continue to suffer the injustices of sub living wages, unfit benefits systems, murders on our borders and individual rights not granted. All for the sake of the rural middle class. Let them experience British life and call themselves patriots, rather than live as gentry and control our choices. Let’s get over whatever marvels the Romans came to offer us, let’s look at who lives in and for Britain now. Let's look at the future because we can either choose change or wait for change from our next imperial masters, and we are not so far from Washington, most of us are a bus ride away from American military property.