Morrissey statement on Cat & Fiddle closing

Post from Morrissey on True To You:

The earth dies screaming - true-to-you.net

23 October 2014

A large part of me dies at news that the pillowy bosom of the Cat And Fiddle is to close down on December 15th, making the universe all wrong. A beacon of light will soon be a headstone, and where will we now go to chew each other's fat? Yes, life is fragile and we all end up as worm chow, but the Cat And Fiddle is one of the Great Drinkers of The 20th Century, and is as stable and rooted a part of the Strip as number 77. We are all orphaned.

with funeral pace
Morrissey
Florence, Italy, 22 Ottobre 2014.



Related item:
 
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It's closing because the landlord has leased the space to a new tenant that will pay DOUBLE the rent. It's not because of a lack of business or some temporary financial need. Crowdfunding, rallying, and Facebook petitions aren't going to do anything. It's the same thing in NYC—so many long-standing favorite restaurants and bars have closed in recent years not because of declining popularity, but because rent stabilization guidelines don't apply to commercial leases. Landlords jack up the rents when lease terms expire, and now only chains can afford those spaces.

Expecting Morrissey to step in and pay this new, doubled rent every month is totally absurd. Is he really not allowed to feel sadness over his favorite pub closing without being barked at for not "saving" it? Please. I don't mean to be so defeatist here, but thinking that Morrissey—or anyone, other than the property owner—could somehow save this restaurant from having to close (or move, which seems to be their plan) strikes me as very unrealistic, not to mention unfair.

Okay fair enough, I obviously hadn't thought the situation through. Of course Morrissey is entitled to feel sad about the closure. :)
 
You get a lot of gruff JB for your somewhat severe and direct comments regarding Moz and his music, but I find myself agreeing with your view on these issues. I know everyone is entitled to their own taste in music and songs hit everybody's ears differently, but the thing I find most astonishing is how such a large number of the people who post on this site actually think he is improving musically and lyrically.

Trouble Loves Me, EDILS, or basically any of his earlier solo work is miles above Bullfighter, WPINOYB, or really anything else he has produced recently. An Anon replied to an earlier post of mine that "the well has run dry" and age may be a factor, but if I am wrong to wish for an album filled with songs with great melody and inspiring/potent lyrics then let me be wrong.

I understand that the days of Alain Whyte may be long gone, and looking to the past for inspiration a detriment to growth, but there must be someone around today that can write a decent tune.

Nobody's perfect...
 
Okay fair enough, I obviously hadn't thought the situation through. Of course Morrissey is entitled to feel sad about the closure. :)

Sorry for getting all indignant—one of my favorite spots here closed last month, and I'm taking it personally!
 
What; no mention of Alvin Stardust in this statement, posted on the day of his passing? Even though he and Morrissey were seated together on television for 30 minutes in 1984?

30 minutes being a significantly longer period than the combined time Morrissey spent with Al Martino, James Baldwin, and Marc Bolan during his non-encounters with them; but look at how much mileage he managed to get out of those anecdotes.

This is an unusual omission from the TTY death files, then. Considering Alvin was very active in the Glam Rock scene of the early '70s, appearing regularly in the charts alongside Bolan, Bowie, Roxy Music and the rest of Moz's boyhood idols.

Undoubtedly Morrissey would have been aware of him, from Top of the Pops and the like; and if Morrissey could later admit to an appreciation for some of the thoroughly unfashionable songs of Benny Hill, Chicory Tip, and The Glitter Band, then it's not beyond reason to think that he may have enjoyed one or two of Alvin's records too.

Perhaps Alvin Stardust isn’t “big-time” enough in 2014 to warrant a 50 word obituary on TTY – and yet, there they were in 1984 – Alvin the avuncular elder statesman of Rock; Morrissey the tyke full of gripe(s). Although Alvin’s star was beginning to fade, appearing in the same frame as him didn’t do Morrissey’s reputation any harm; if anything it lent him some credibility.

It showed Morrissey had the potential to obtain mass appeal, he wasn’t just the messiah of bedroom-confined teenaged pariahs – who turned into the type of people you see before you on Solo today. Instead he could compete with, and possibly eclipse the real Stars, and achieve similarly feverish levels of adulation from the wider public. The possibilities were endless, especially after he rubbed shoulders with Alvin. Like when Ed Sullivan flashed Elvis the thumbs-up and called him a “decent, fine boy”, Alvin gave Morrissey respectability. But then Morrissey painted himself into a corner. He first exposed himself as a fraud with the continued false literariness in his lyrics and interviews, before finally nailing himself to the wall with his unthoughtful comments from the early ‘90s onwards.

It could have turned out differently, perhaps if he used Alvin’s career as a template. When Alvin had run out of things to say, he stopped releasing music. The last album he released before his death was in 1984, but he had already perfectly encapsulated everything he ever needed to say in the song “My Coo Ca Choo”. Whether he wrote it, or even sang on it is irrelevant; he fronted the song and it always will be associated with him. He reused the formula many times throughout the ‘70s with varying degrees of success.

It was one of the first English language pop records since Gene Vincent’s Be-Bop-a-Lula which conveyed so expertly the very essence of raw human sexuality and lust within three minutes of stunning pop noise. An incredible achievement, only matched by The Stooges’ “Dirt”. The lyrics are mostly gibberish, but sex is rarely eloquent, and that is what it captures. Morrissey wishes he could have written it, but his hands were tied by his NME patrons who, if he had dared to pen something so primal, would have swiftly cut him down with a “Hey Steven, you’re ruining all the paintwork”.

Morrissey had plenty of opportunities to drop the literary posturing; he could have packed it all in during the early ‘90s for a few years and attended a University – any University in the country would have had him. If he truly cared about expanding his knowledge base and polishing up his writing, it may have been a more stimulating experience than writhing around on stage in a gold lame jacket whilst wrapped in the Union Jack flag, and would have proven to be beneficial in the long run. He chose not to do that, and instead ran his influences into the ground. The opportunity presented itself again from 1997-2004, but he decided upon an unproductive, sedentary lifestyle.

The overblown, high-flown lyrics are a thing of the past now, but it’s too late, because that is what’s come to be expected of him. He tried to write some straightforward pop songs without the embellishments, starting with Boy Racer in 1995, but nobody was listening. And his listeners were never going to accept a “Kid’s a Looker“ from him when he’s capable of an “I’ve Changed My Plea to Guilty”, because he never managed to escape from the “Sister, I’m a Poet” shackles.

He’s still considered a literary ‘genius’ by some because he read a couple of books by George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Charles Dickens 20 years ago. Which was about the same time that he gave up on his education; bringing about the rapid decline in the quality of his lyrics, although he was never a heavy-reader to begin with. He likely felt he was “clever enough already” at that stage, and the thought of sitting around reading Victorian novels in his mansion in L.A. wasn’t appealing when he could just watch films, wander the strip, and down pints at the Cat & Fiddle. Like all millionaire suicidalists.
 
Re: Article: Morrissey statement on Cat & Fiddle closing

My rough estimate is that he has read less than 50 books since 1994; but he never was an intellectual anyway, his main areas of interest were always films and 50s-70s pop music. Books were just things which he picked up from time to time, and if he managed to finish one it made him feel superior to everyone around him. I would be surprised if he has finished more than 150-200 books in his entire life. He read some feminist literature in the late 70s/early 80s, along with film and crime books. 'Taste of Honey' and 'Down by Grand Central Station' which he devoured time and time again are about 80 and 60 pages long, respectively. Longer books were mostly beyond him.

In interviews down through the years he has mentioned just about every book that he's ever completed, apart from a few which he keeps 'in reserve'. Recently he has been retroactively bolstering the amount of books that he read in his earlier years, adding authors which he actually more likely read in the 00s and '10s to add to the 'mythology'. An example of this is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers; he never mentioned this book until a questionnaire last year some time, claiming to have discovered it in his teens and that it had a major effect on him. Why would he wait 30 years to mention it?

I imagine he read it a couple of years ago and realised he should have done so 40 years earlier, so now he says that he did. Other examples include Patrick MacGill and Robert Herrick from 'Autobiography'. The fifteen year old Morrissey hated school, coming away with one GCSE, what are the chances that he sat at home appreciating the poetry of MacGill and Herrick? He was watching Coronation Street and Top of the Pops. Not even '77 Sunset Strip; that came later as well. There's an interview with Morrissey from the mid-80s at his home in Chelsea, where the interviewer looks through his bookshelf only to find all of the books which he had been discussing for the past number of years. The interviewer asks whether Morrissey wants to diversify and widen his areas of interest, to which Morrissey responds by questioning why would he want to do that.

When he became famous his days of discovery were over; he was content throughout the 1980s to keep returning to the books that had served him so well six years before.

He read very few 'new' books during that time, the diaries of Kenneth Williams and Joe Orton were two notable ones. In the early 90s he came across Dickens for the first time, along with reading a couple of books each by the previously mentioned Hardy and Eliot (I don't believe he read Middlemarch in the early 1980s apart from the first few pages).

By the mid-1990s when 'Jake' came into his life is when it appears he went from reading semi-regularly to not reading at all. He felt like he was intelligent enough by then, and the racism accusations caused him to lose focus. He became more obsessive over his image and couldn't concentrate on the words written by others, which seemed unimportant to him by then. It's my contention that he has barely read a book since then (approximately 20 years).

In questionnaires he mentions that he prefers to start a book at the back page and work towards the beginning, also that he has to have a pencil in hand to underline words he doesn't know and that he likes to take his time with it; sure signs of a man with poor concentration skills. He has never had any interest in History (he proved his lack of historical knowledge in the lyric to IBEH when he completely misunderstood the Royal Family's feelings towards Oliver Cromwell), nor in Art (Robert Mackie letters, TTY questionnaire where he said he never cared about Art but regretted it and has been going to museums), classical music (expressed his disinterest in a 1990s interview), politics (only a fleeting interest, and a tenuous grasp of it, see WPINOYB).

Basically, he only ever cared about films, pop music and 'some' books, yet managed to pass himself off as an 'intellectual' to disenfranchised youngsters who were looking for their messiah. Many of whom are on this forum right now, still gullible, and still being misled. And STILL he never was able to produce a “My Coo Ca Choo” – what a hack!

But let’s not forget why we came here tonight: to give Alvin a proper send-off since this cad would rather post a statement about his top ten shows on the tour than pay homage to one of his predecessors. Below is “Little Red Dress”, which reached #7 in 1974, something that the charts-obsessed Morrissey surely would have informed us about if he had the decency to write a few lines.

As for me, I’m too sad to write anything else.
Life is a Pigsty.
R.I.P Bernard Jewry 1942-2014 (no, that’s not an anti-semitic remark, don’t start on that again!)

Question: Am I going to offer any of you a personal response?
Answer: You must be out of your tiny minds! But you can try if you like, because it brings me amusement.



Addendum: I would have posted the live version, but that has J**** S***** introducing it. At least I didn’t post “Alvin Stardust at the Wheeltappers” which has a certain B****** M****** offering the introduction, which would have caused a couple of the people on this forum to start frothing at the mouth. Like I give a fcuk! He seems like an angel now compared with S*****, Rolf, and the rest, doesn’t he? He wasn't very funny though, but while Esther Rantzen and co. were deriding him, they were allowing S***** and his cohorts to get away with something much, much worse. Don’t get me started on what Ben Elton did to poor Benny Hill either; he can hang for all I care! And so can the rest of ye, on my every word! LOLOL!
 
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That's real-estate speak. ;)

My friends bought a house in Culver City and the realtor said their home was "tsunami-zone adjacent." Made me lol. Still does every time I use it.
 
Re: Article: Morrissey statement on Cat & Fiddle closing

My rough estimate is that he has read less than 50 books since 1994; but he never was an intellectual anyway, his main areas of interest were always films and 50s-70s pop music. Books were just things which he picked up from time to time, and if he managed to finish one it made him feel superior to everyone around him. I would be surprised if he has finished more than 150-200 books in his entire life. He read some feminist literature in the late 70s/early 80s, along with film and crime books. 'Taste of Honey' and 'Down by Grand Central Station' which he devoured time and time again are about 80 and 60 pages long, respectively. Longer books were mostly beyond him.

In interviews down through the years he has mentioned just about every book that he's ever completed, apart from a few which he keeps 'in reserve'. Recently he has been retroactively bolstering the amount of books that he read in his earlier years, adding authors which he actually more likely read in the 00s and '10s to add to the 'mythology'. An example of this is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers; he never mentioned this book until a questionnaire last year some time, claiming to have discovered it in his teens and that it had a major effect on him. Why would he wait 30 years to mention it?

I imagine he read it a couple of years ago and realised he should have done so 40 years earlier, so now he says that he did. Other examples include Patrick MacGill and Robert Herrick from 'Autobiography'. The fifteen year old Morrissey hated school, coming away with one GSCE, what are the chances that he sat at home appreciating the poetry of MacGill and Herrick? He was watching Coronation Street and Top of the Pops. Not even '77 Sunset Strip; that came later as well. There's an interview with Morrissey from the mid-80s at his home in Chelsea, where the interviewer looks through his bookshelf only to find all of the books which he had been discussing for the past number of years. The interviewer asks whether Morrissey wants to diversify and widen his areas of interest, to which Morrissey responds by questioning why would he would want to do that.

When he became famous his days of discovery were over; he was content throughout the 1980s to keep returning to the books that had served him so well six years before.

He read very few 'new' books during that time, the diaries of Kenneth Williams and Joe Orton were two notable ones. In the early 90s he came across Dickens for the first time, along with reading a couple of books each by the previously mentioned Hardy and Eliot (I don't believe he read Middlemarch in the early 1980s apart from the first few pages).

By the mid-1990s when 'Jake' came into his life is when it appears he went from reading semi-regularly to not reading at all. He felt like he was intelligent enough by then, and the racism accusations caused him to lose focus. He became more obsessive over his image and couldn't concentrate on the words written by others, which seemed unimportant to him by then. It's my contention that he has barely read a book since then (approximately 20 years).

In questionnaires he mentions that he prefers to start a book at the back page and work towards the beginning, also that he has to have a pencil in hand to underline words he doesn't know and that he likes to take his time with it; sure signs of a man with poor concentration skills. He has never had any interest in History (he proved his lack of historical knowledge in the lyric to IBEH when he completely misunderstood the Royal Family's feelings towards Oliver Cromwell), nor in Art (Robert Mackie letters, TTY questionnaire where he said he never cared about Art but regretted it and has been going to museums), classical music (expressed his disinterest in a 1990s interview), politics (only a fleeting interest, and a tenuous grasp of it, see WPINOYB).

Basically, he only ever cared about films, pop music and 'some' books, yet managed to pass himself off as an 'intellectual' to disenfranchised youngsters who were looking for their messiah. Many of whom are on this forum right now, still gullible, and still being misled. And STILL he never was able to produce a “My Coo Ca Choo” – what a hack!

But let’s not forget why we came here tonight: to give Alvin a proper send-off since this cad would rather post a statement about his top ten shows on the tour than pay homage to one of his predecessors. Below is “Little Red Dress”, which reached #7 in 1974, something that the charts-obsessed Morrissey surely would have informed us about if he had the decency to write a few lines.

As for me, I’m too sad to write anything else.
Life is a Pigsty.
R.I.P Bernard Jewry 1942-2014 (no, that’s not an anti-semitic remark, don’t start on that again!)

Question: Am I going to offer any of you a personal response?
Answer: You must be out of your tiny minds! But you can try if you like, because it brings me amusement.



Addendum: I would have posted the live version, but that has J**** S***** introducing it. At least I didn’t post “Alvin Stardust at the Wheeltappers” which has a certain B****** M****** offering the introduction, which would have caused a couple of the people on this forum to start frothing at the mouth. Like I give a fcuk! He seems like an angel now compared with S*****, Rolf, and the rest, doesn’t he? He wasn't very funny though, but while Esther Rantzen and co. were deriding him, they were allowing S***** and his cohorts to get away with something much, much worse. Don’t get me started on what Ben Elton did to poor Benny Hill either; he can hang for all I care! And so can the rest of ye, on my every word! LOLOL!


Good love can never die R I P Alvin. Only last week you where on the turntable at our fundraising 70s disco singing my coo ca choo.
Mozambiguous ! What can I say ! I love your work above, I wonder who the honour will fall to next in the " true to you death files " (lmao brilliant) I thought Linda Bellingham but then again she did the Bisto adverts didn't she.
Keep posting your a breath of fresh air.


Benny-the-British-Butcher
 
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Re: Article: Morrissey statement on Cat & Fiddle closing

I imagine he read it a couple of years ago and realised he should have done so 40 years earlier, so now he says that he did. Other examples include Patrick MacGill and Robert Herrick from 'Autobiography'. The fifteen year old Morrissey hated school, coming away with one GSCE, what are the chances that he sat at home appreciating the poetry of MacGill and Herrick? He was watching Coronation Street and Top of the Pops.
A lack of interest in formal education/mediocre academic performance is not necessarily indicative of a lack of intellect or desire for knowledge. For many people---myself included---an academic environment can be tedious, and the material is often dry and not engaging, which may lead to indifference and a lack of effort in the classroom. However, this doesn't mean we don't want to learn, it's just that extracurricular self-education is usually more fulfilling and worthwhile.

Just because Morrissey performed poorly in school and was averse to a structured learning environment does not make him an intellectual fraud. The idea that he pretended to be interested in literature or philosophy or politics simply because of his academic history is silly. Furthermore, an interest in "frivolity" like pop music and an interest in more "serious" matters are not mutually exclusive.
 
Again, this really sucks. This was the only place you can walk right past Morrissey and not even realize it.

It would be so cool if Morrissey and his wife would open a Vegetarian Italian restaurant around there. I'm sure it would be very popular.
 
Again, this really sucks. This was the only place you can walk right past Morrissey and not even realize it.

It would be so cool if Morrissey and his wife would open a Vegetarian Italian restaurant around there. I'm sure it would be very popular.
You really are obccessed about a relationship between him an nancy.
 
Sorry for getting all indignant—one of my favorite spots here closed last month, and I'm taking it personally!

No, no don't apologise I completely understand. A coffee shop I love(d) closed two weeks ago as the landlord was inflexible and pursuing a high rate. The high street has yawning gaps in it's store fronts and the chains have moved in at the expense of local business Starbucks, Wetherspoons etc.,
 
Quite deliberately opting for 'funeral' as opposed to 'funereal'.............meaningless statement, but poetic none the less
 
Quite deliberately opting for 'funeral' as opposed to 'funereal'.............meaningless statement, but poetic none the less

Actually, "at funeral pace" (not "funereal") is a quotation from TS Eliot's Four Quartets.

Hilarious when So Low know-it-alls criticise without knowing the references...
 
Hey diddle, diddle
I can't wait til December 16th. :D
 
It must be maddening for all you erudite, hard-working, academic-style writers to look at someone as lazy and phony as Morrissey supposedly is, and to see that he is far more popular and more well-respected than you will ever be; that his uneducated words resonate with far more people than your words ever will.

You don't have to be a well-educated snob to be intelligent and to have a unique narrative voice. Maybe whatever originality you had was drummed out of you by an impressive education. Still, you can write pages and pages of criticism about him on a website not named after you, and still fail to hold the reader's attention whereas Morrissey's TTY blogs are usually interesting.

I'm not without criticism for him at times, but even the worst parts of his 457-page Autobiography were a better read than the generically-written screeds posted against him here.
 

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