hey, i know (and have been) that guy before
Last night I did something totally indulgent. It's something I would have not thought to do otherwise, but my friends Nora and Juan invited me, and then I realized, I have to do this, I have to reconcile this part of my life once and for all.
I went to a Morrissey concert. For two hours I watched as the old man taunted, teased, and strutted back and forth, crooning the lyrics that we all know and love, about boys with thorns in their sides shouting the same old SOS with the luck they've had they could only turn bad needing love just like everybody else does, and so on ad infinitum. The whole experience rocketed me back to my floppy-haired Doc-Marten-wearing teenage life in the early 90's. And I knew that I have been here before. These people around me, we all know why we are here. We're here to worship and reaffirm our faith.
And the concert was absolutely fascinating, Morrissey never actually giving us what we want, save once when he finally ripped his shirt off threw it to the crowd then quickly (and cutely) scampered offstage. The whole time the security men were crouched at the edge, always ready to tackle the boys who would rush that sacred space, the boys (and it's always boys) who fall prey to Morrissey's weird form of cocktease. But no, of course they'll never get it, they'll get yanked away and pulled backstage, their just punishment if they should try to get too close. In Morrissey's bizarre mythology, homosexuality is something always to be hidden, just around the corner, but never acknowledged much less embraced, making it safe for alienated and confused post-pubescents.
And when I left the concert I felt connected to the religion of my youth, the one I've since abandoned but still obviously can't quite totally shake, a secular form of Catholicism called Morrissey.