"New Years With Morrissey."

In our preening overweening self-glory, me, my wife and a few thousand other people were acting under the arrogant illusion that we were going to see in the New Year in the company of S.P. Morrissey. Did we all think that we would be taking hot toddies in the wee hours with Morrissey and Russell Brand and a small circle of intimate bum chums?! We were horribly mistaken. We apologize to Morrissey and his friends and family for the vanity of the thing. The awful delusion.

We went to the show at the Galen Center, a college basketball court, thinking we were going to be spending midnight at the show. That on the stroke of midnight Morrissey would sheik, a la Noddy Holder, "Happy New Years," and launch into a Slade medley. In fact we were turfed out unceremoniously around eleven. We raced frantically for the metro & hopped on the Expo line & changed at 7th Street for the red line, got to Ye Rustic Inn just minutes before midnight. I did not toast Morrissey from the pub hearth.

Mischievous madman of Erin! (Morrissey reinvented himself as an Irishman a while ago, and also as a pseudo-Mexican.)

"What do you think Morrissey is doing now?" I asked my wife, as we were crossing Vermont.
"Who?" she goes. Coming out of a doze. "Mike Myers?"
"Morrissey. You know, the singer we have been watching for the last two hours."
"Oh –– him."

* * * * * * * * * *

On New Year's Eve 2000 I was in Camden, in the Spread Eagle, with Larry Arkansas, when Morrissey came in with a bevy of raven-haired Californian girls, and indeed I did end up sat hugger-mugger with the great good man. They were soon joined by another bevy, now of skinheads from the Old East End. This was when I went up to one of the girls and asked her, "Californian Satanists, right? Right. Dye your hair religiously, right? Yes you do. Love Betty Page. Tikis and lava lamps. Got it. Know Boyd Rice, correct?" She did not know Boyd Rice. Had never heard of him.

I swear to God I swear
I never even knew who Boyd Rice was.
Oh-oh-oh-oh...

I ended up sat with Morrissey. Recalled the good old days we'd had. I'd seen him in Henley Woolworths riffling through the seven inches ten years earlier, had got him to sign a copy of Spin with Lisa Stansfield on the cover. "Ah yes –– I know Woolworths in Henley well." Now we were talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald –– Morrissey had moved into his house in Hollywood –– and I remember recommending he read The Recognitions by William Gaddis. We spoke on, but regrettably I also continued drinking throughout that night. I ended up at another Camden pub, sitting with a girl, and I tried to charm her by saying, "What if I did this?" and emptied two full pints out over the table.
I blacked out and my story ends here.