MORRISSEY: IN HIS OWN WORDS

The other day, bored out of my mind as the snow piled up outside, I revisited a book I had not delved into since my willfully homeless, gutterpunk teenaged years... "Morrissey: In His Own Words".

It remains that I am beyond fond of the Smiths. Fantastic, insightful lyrics about our intimate relations and pleasing, jangly melodies... it's hard not to be so fond of them. The book is basically a compendium of Morrissey quotes, but compiles a scant few post-Smiths breakup quotes, so the book is basically Smiths vintage. While I would not claim to be on any kind of similar political plateau as Morrissey, at least not at this point in his life, I find many of his musings to reporters relevant and witty and, above all, interesting. But one statement leapt out at me in the chapter called "Politics":

"We don't need all this excessive technology, it's just a select bunch of people who think we have to keep up with the Japanese. People's requirements are quite basic. You need food and shelter and anything else you can live without."

To the last point, that may very well be true. But who would want to (live without anything other than food or shelter)? I wonder how Morrissey... whom in other sections of this book expresses his sincerest and undying devotion to these "excessive" things such as books, music, womens' blouses, pugilism, James Dean movies, hearing aids, floral bouquets, public immortality, and the technologies that bring all of these to him and the rest of us... and whom eerily resembles yours truly... could seriously profess a belief such as this.

Of course, I may be reading too much into it.


Morrissey? Or Astropolis? Only their mothers know for certain.