It’s about time I made another entry, and incidentally I kind of feel like this is all I’ve got energy for right now. It’s not that I’m having a bad week per se, just that I’m on the cusp of getting a number of fiscal type chores done, and with my meds where they are, I’m back to actually feeling the appropriate level of dismay at the procrastination and ongoing unproductiveness to date. Also I stayed up too late last night and release today was a bit of a slog. I mean we didn’t even cook tonight, we used Foodler, and I still feel as though I did actual work (ok we did some dishes and stuff but whatever).

Nevermind you that. Things are good. I’m going home this weekend for a time-adjusted Seder. I got in a little extra cardio at the gym and felt good. We went shopping at BJs on Sunday and made bison chili that I was able to spread out over two days of deliciousness. It’s nice feeling like we actually have enough ingredients to work with.

Oh yeah, and we saw Morrissey, who is friggin’ sweet.

Who, you may ask, is this Morrissey fellow? You shut your mouth. He is human and he needs to be loved. Er, I mean… he’s an Irish an English singer who fronted alternative band The Smiths in the 80s and has enjoyed rabid fandom in his subsequent solo career. Wikipedia calls him “sardonic and literary” and also “iconic” and a bunch of other things.

I’ll start my own observations by pointing out that the picture on his own site (see above link) speaks volumes. Nevermind the baby in his arm, it has nothing to do with anything. The first thing you notice in concert is yes, he is in fact that unreal. Well-dressed and full of himself, he moves well, as rock stars were expected to in the 80s. The second thing you notice is how good he sounds.

His whole band, actually. Morrissey’s on-stage energy is matched by the energy of their sound. They’re impeccably mixed of course, and overdriven with precisely the right gain. Heavy but versatile, in strong contrast with the generic British pranggggg of the Courteeners when they opened the show. I’m reminded again how it always seems the opening act gets dialed down a notch–maybe so the main act will seem heavier, maybe just to spare the audience’s ears, I’m not really sure. At any rate, what I’m trying to say is that Morrissey sounds just awesome.

His voice… is just amazing. It’s commanding and moody and earnest. And because he’s clearly well-trained and well-traveled, I catch most of the lyrics on the first listen (this can be dicey business with Brit rock, as it was with the Courteeners’ thick, drunken Manchester). It reaffirms some of what I’d been able to piece together about Morrissey as a person, and I see why Nikki digs him. He’s clever and strange and expressive and self-effacing and bitter and extremely political (Irish Blood, English Heart is among his better known ones).

Particularly weird is his ability to be self-effacing and narcissistic at the same time–this seems to figure heavily in his showmanship. He spends a lot of time bemoaning love lost, or never had. It’s a motif that seems to extend the length of his career. The Smiths gave us How Soon is Now?, which remains a crowd favorite in Morrissey’s stewardship. You can take it as a gay thing, or apparently a witch thing (TV seems to favor the latter), but first and foremost it’s about loneliness and alienation. Read the lyrics. I’ll wait. See? And yet at the same time, he’s all about the fan service, as losing his shirt and pissing off security to reach into the audience seem to be part of the routine. Because Morrissey is nothing if not devilishly handsome.

Money well spent, that’s for sure. The one major downside, I found out that these running shoes really don’t offer such good support for long periods of standing. Not a specialization I would have thought of; what am I gonna do, buy standing shoes for the next time I spend four hours standing and stomping at House of Blues? Or maybe just get some calluses. I dunno.