A Morrissey Adventure!

Hey! What if Morrissey were a pirate? Or a superhero? Or a stylish undercover cop busting heads in a corrupt town only he could clean up? Or a space-hero, fighting off invading alien hordes with two laser guns & a microphone?

Okay, none of that sounds fun at all. But I will tell you that, today on Self Help Radio, I'll be celebrating Morrissey's solo career with songs he's recorded since the Smiths fell down & hit their head & died, plus I'll be playing fabulous covers of Morrissey's solo songs by people who wish they were as fabulous as Morrissey, as well as songs that Morrissey himself has covered during his very long solo career. He's been releasing records as "Morrissey" for almost twenty years now; the Smiths existed for maybe a quarter that. Amazing.

I have a special treat for creepy Morrissey fans, available only over the Memorial Day weekend. If you go to the Self Help Radio webpage & click on the link that says Morrissey Contest, & write me an email about how much you like Morrissey, you could win a Morrissey tribute CD that I will make myself with only a sponge & a rusty spanner. (Actually, it'll be pretty much the music I play on the show - without all my blabbing in-between.) It's the way one Morrissey fan shows his love for other Morrissey fans.

So tune in, you sad bastard! I won't let you forget the songs that made your cry, or the songs that saved your life!

The Flabby & The Fastidious

A moral to this story might be: do you care about your blog? Do you want it to be a good blog, full of righteousness & collectible bonus points, or would you rather your blog be a kleenex you might use to wipe away sadness & indiscretion?

Can a moral be a question? There's no question we have a problem with morals. I have no stories to tell that don't involve a fox, a man-whore & the Fromberg, Montana, Glee Club Rejects. Except for this one:

A man, his man-whore, & two former members of the Fromberg, Montana, Glee Club, were sitting in a bar daydreaming about the way things sometimes are, when in walked the most devastatingly beautiful fox they'd ever seen...

No, that one has a man-whore, a fox & the Glee Club rejects in it. I guess it's come to this: I'm all out of stories.

Which reminds me of a dude I used to know named Charlie Shuttle. Charlie was the hippest cat to ever hustle pool or contradict authority the old backwash of a city called Garland, Texas, had ever seen. Snap! That was the sound Charlie made when he got you in a headlock because you were messing with his girl & he'd just pop that top vertebrae out & you were crippled for life. Snap! Charlie Shuttle didn't get in trouble because his dad was Police Chief & his mom was the town drunk. So he had all his bases covered, if you know what I mean. Snap! Guess you'll think twice again, wheelchair man, before you give ol' Charlie Shuttle the stinkeye one more time. Snappity snap!

I wasn't friends with Charlie Shuttle, but I did subscribe to his magazine. He died in an electrical fire on a solar panel after falling thirteen stories from a windmill during the 1986 meltdown at the Garland nuclear reactor. Some idiot tried to save him by tossing him into a pile of coal, but a natural gas line burst & he suffocated to death. There was a sad irony, though - his parents decided to bury him on their family farm outside Granbury, but what should happen while they were digging the grave - they struck oil!

I know, I shouldn't lecture you, but sometimes you're as dense as a dense thicket. Why are we friends, anyway?

Whither A Show About Morrissey?

Yea, but the man is like unto a god to me. Nay, not because of his grand homosexuality nor his snarky wit. Nay, not because Wilde is on his side, while only Bowie is on mine. Yea, he simply spake what was true in my ugly, lonely, yearning little shell of a heart. In ways that no one else could, set to music, something true to dance to, did Morrissey seduce me. So I honor him completely & utterly.

I'm so glad to have grown up & am now able to say, "Oh, I don't like this," etc. Blind worship is for limited intelligences. I ignored him while his career fell apart in the mid to late 90's because he wasn't making very good music. I thrilled two years ago to his comeback, & was disappointed by his most recent record. But for the first time in my life, I'll get to see him live this Saturday. You'll get to hear music by him, covers of his solo work, & songs he's covered while solo. No! No Smiths! Stop living in the past, you Morrissey you!

Live for this Friday. Then dance with me on Saturday.

Preface To A Show About Morrissey: If He Cancels Again I'll Just Die!

I have this dread feeling when it comes to people whom I admire greatly that, if left alone with them, I wouldn't be able to say anything & they'd dislike me immediately. This is partially why I have become such great friends with Scott McLellan. Part of me wants to say it'd be different with Morrissey, but everyone thinks they'd have a great relationship with Morrissey. It's not like people who become friends with Elvis Costello, then come to loathe him because of his current wife. Morrissey's wife is, I'm told, very down to earth. Like June Cleaver with chest hair. She uses all parts of the tofu when she cooks it. She is, it has been widely reported, the sort of girl you'd bring home to meet mother. Not father. Mother.

I have never met Morrissey, & I won't when he comes to town this week. But I feel like I really, really know him. Not like that asshole Johnny Marr. Do I get a sense of him from the new Modest Mouse record? No! I get a Mousey feeling, but that fucker's not Modest. Why should he be? Didn't he write the music for "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"? Yes, he did. So he can call me all the names he wants. He can shit on my head when I am lying bleeding on the pavement because Morrissey kicked me in the teeth again, I DON'T CARE. He's allowed. But I still don't know him.

I used to know Morrissey, too. In his lean mean period, after he released one crappy record too many in the late 90's & was forced to turn to Bingo to make ends meet. You'll remember those days - I was afraid I had scarlet rubella, & you were daydreaming of making a reality television show where you'd be trapped on a desert island with only fifteen fifteen-year-old boys & girls & the soundtrack to "Hackers." Morrissey existed almost entirely in our heads, saved from ten years before when we were lonesome & we didn't want to believe people could take anything more seriously than we did. Morrissey disappeared, though - up the ass of the universe, I once heard you say - & you disappeared, too. You became part of Kenneth Lay's Ethics Squad & you were the number one Blowjob Researcher in Washington, DC.

Neither one of you did badly, though - Morrissey made a comeback & he's coming to town this week, & you went to the private sector & now study blowjobs for GE. I am estranged from you both. I guess, like the characters in the songs that Morrissey sings that I listen to & which I'll play on my show Friday, I got left behind.

No tears! I am not the saddest clown! Worry me not, endless past! I shall be free of you one day, if only because I plan to remove pieces of my brain one by one until I no longer remember grunge! I am prepared for collateral damage!

Tomorrow: a very long poem to Morrissey written when I was 17 & had never been kissed. Not even by Morrissey.

The Campaign To Make Memorial Day A National Holiday

I was a little sleepy when I wrote this so I was doe-eyed & cute. There was gunk in my eyes. I kept yawning over words & stretching out while we were talking & making it hard for you to understand. I was thinking that, you know, being suffocated by a pillow sounds marvellous.

Because existence is a fruit cup, I am slapping some water on the face of the present time & managing to spend a little & save a lot. You may have an inky inkling where this dialogue is going: yes, we need more days off. The Europeans have it right: don't ever require anyone to work ever. 30 hour week? 30 hour fuck you! Now, where's my health insurance? I need to go to a clinic in Brussels & have my ass removed.

Aside to Scott McLellan: you have been utterly & completely forgotten by everyone but me.

I was at the lake house this weekend - I mean, the lake of fire house - I mean, the firehouse by the lake - I mean, the firehouse once visited by Veronica Lake - & I noticed that the bags under my eyes are getting a little frayed from overuse. This is why I am a champion of allowing everyone unlimited carry-on bags on flights. Or on busses. I haven't been on a bus in years. I mean one of those busses that goes from town-to-town. But just this year, I've been on a place, a city bus, a trolly, an airplane, a magic carpet, a ten-speed bicycle, a hunchback's back, a space shuttle (but I didn't fly in it or anything, duh), a convenience store conveyor belt, & a helicopter. But no bus that goes from town-to-town. Mainly because I haven't wanted to go from town-to-town.

Someone is telling me that I need to enjoy the finer things in life. What does that say about me? What does that say about what that person sees me surrounding myself with at the moment? The only sort of nice things in life? What happens if it turns out my life is nearly exactly like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, when really it's supposed to be like Law & Order: Criminal Intent?

I'm stuck in an elevator now, & there's a woman laughing at an adverisement next to me, so I'd best do what I do best: scream out the lyrics of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" in Esperanto. That makes the journey more exciting for all of us.

Tips For Wasting A Lazy Sunday

1) Add gin to your lemonade.
2) Mow, mow, mow.
3) Look for redundant videos of Zach Galifianakis on Youtube. Decide - beard or no beard?
4) Divide your Elvis Costello records between when he was good & when he started sucking. Yell at his sucky records. Yes, even if you feel bad about New Orleans.
5) Call your mother. Doze while she talks.
6) Piss your cats off by following them around & doing everything they're doing.
7) Make up a rain dance. Do a rain dance. If it rains, jump in the air, pump your fists & say, "You are my bitch you sky god motherfucker!"
8) Sundays are clothing-optional all over the world.
9) Think about shopping, think better of it.
10) Go to the Self Help Radio website & catch up on the episodes you've been missing. Last Friday's train wreck of a show - about parades - is there for the eating. Yum yum!