Enigma

The noblest name in Allegory's page, 
The hand that traced inexorable rage; 
A pleasing moralist whose page refined, 
Displays the deepest knowledge of the mind; 
A tender poet of a foreign tongue, 
(Indited in the language that he sung.) 
A bard of brilliant but unlicensed page 
At once the shame and glory of our age, 
The prince of harmony and stirling sense, 
The ancient dramatist of eminence, 
The bard that paints imagination's powers, 
And him whose song revives departed hours, 
Once more an ancient tragic bard recall, 
In boldness of design surpassing all. 
These names when rightly read, a name [make] known 
Which gathers all their glories in its own. 

Edgar Allan Poe

The Glue That Holds Me Together

As Morrissey's fall U. S. tour comes to a close, I want to thank Our Moz for playing one of my favorite songs, Glamorous Glue. This song brings back some very fond memories of a better time for me. I am not much into nostalgia but with an artist such as Morrissey, with a wonderful catalogue of songs to choose from it's is nice he is able to take songs from different eras and meld them into a vibrant concert. Music is meant to bring out emotions and make folks feel whatever that particular song means to them. Glamorous Glue takes me to a time when life was dynamic and full of possibilities. Each concert I am able to pull up the Youtube video of Mozza singing it gives me a 4:01 time frame that takes me away to a different place and time. It is much appreciated and I am very grateful.

                                                                     Glamorous Glue

The line of the song that has the most meaning to me is "I used to dream and I used to vow, I wouldn't dream of it now" has a special place. It may possibly be my favorite quote of all time. It tells me of someone who was once idealistic and non compromising, with the whole world in front of him, all possibilities on the table. And now one who has been beaten down by the world, maybe with some small sliver of idealism left, waiting for the inevitable end.

The Morrissey tour has come to a close with some very stormy seas. The tour opened with such excitement and spirit, with the new album and enthusiastic crowds. Good times! The good times never stay. The controversy with interviews and the last two concerts being cancelled have brought out the long knives. Our Moz has seen rough seas before and I'm sure he will navigate these troubling times and continue to be the amazing artist and poet of our generations.

                                                             All You Need Is Me

What concerns me most anytime I hear Morrissey is ill, is how bad is it? Our Moz has had some very serious health problems over the last several years. Anytime I hear he is sick, a little voice in my head says "Could this be the end". I hope not and I hope this is just the flu or a cold. I will miss Morrissey very badly when he is gone. My question is what will all the naysayers and haters do when he is gone? Why do people who hate him, spend so much of their valuable time degrading him? Why don't they find something they like and immerse themselves in that? It's a question I will never be able to answer.

The last date on the tour is the KROQ Almost Acoustic festival on December 10, where Our Moz is the headliner. There is some doubt at this point if the show will go on. I hope Mozza is able to be there, if nothing more to silence his vapid critics.  Regardless, the world will continue to staggeringly turn in the age of Trump and Roy Moore. People will be murdered in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. The future appears to be going from dim to black. Is there nothing or no one left to believe in?
Why do we continue to go on? Living daily meaningless lives devoted to nothing. One constant "glue" if you will in my life has been Our Moz, his words, his music and for that I am forever thankful.

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow! 
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream; 
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone? 
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep! 
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp? 
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave? 
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream? 

Edgar Allan Poe

These Dreams

Today is Sunday. My usual routine is to get up, go to the store and get some groceries. I come home, work out, eat lunch then get on twitter to see what is going on in the cyber world.  Of course I did my usual boring thing on this Sunday. I was going through my twitter timeline and the the above picture hit me like a cold, hard slap to the face. Morrissey has never been on a date! Wait a second here. this can't be true. I truly was flattened when I saw this, here's why:  last night I had a dream I went ice skating with Morrissey and it was a date.

I rarely ever dream and when I do they are usually horrid affairs. I am falling off a cliff, being run over by a truck or being murdered by a burglar. This was not my usual fare in dreamland. The dream began at an ice rink of course. I said hello to Our Moz and he said let's get our skates on.  He had his own skates too.  I play ice hockey, so I am a pretty good skater.  We got out on the ice and began to skate. I was pleasantly surprised at how good a skater Moz was.  He could skate backward, do spins and jumps. I was very impressed at his skills.  We skated for awhile and then went to the cafe in the rink and had something to drink. Unfortunately, I woke up and my date with Our Moz was over.  He has had a date but it was with a nobody from nowhere in a dream. The funny thing was, this was not the current Moz, it was Moz from about 20 years ago. He was wearing a nice pair of jeans and a long sleeved shiny gold shirt. This isn't over yet. It felt so real but once I realized I was in my bed and not at an Ice Rink with Mozza, I smiled, laughed to myself and thought what funny tricks your mind can play on you. It was fun while it lasted. My dreams weren't over for last night.

I fell back to sleep almost immediately. My unconscious took over and I was back in dreamworld. I was in some kind of office and seated in a chair. There was a white curtain which was partially open.
On the other side of the curtain was Morrissey and two ladies. They looked to be reading him financial reports. He was listening intently to them and when he saw me sitting there he smiled and waved. I smiled and waved back. Seconds later Boz Boorer came into the office, he was red faced and extremely upset about something. I said hello as he rushed by me but he didn't acknowledge me. He went through the curtain where Moz and the ladies were. He was trying to say something to Our Moz. Mozza told him to sit down and he had an announcement to make. Moz called for me to come in behind the white curtain. I obliged and as I got behind the curtain, Moz said "I would like to introduce you to Harrison". And at this important moment I woke up! One second I was the subject of an important announcement by Morrissey, the next I was lying alone in my bed. Talk about a big disappointment.

I laid there for awhile trying to take this all in. I just had two dreams about Morrissey in the space of about an hour. My immediate thoughts were, am I obsessed with Morrissey? Am I going crazy? What the hell did I have for dinner last night? Upon reflection I came up with no concrete answers and fell back to sleep with no more dreams. I really didn't think much of it until I saw the headline Moz never was on a date. He really has had a date but he just doesn't know it.

In the real world, the Morrissey U.S. tour successfully rolls on. He is playing to enthusiastic sell out crowds. Portland, Seattle, San Fran, L.A., Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, St. Louis and Chicago so far. He is playing a mix of songs, old standbys plus songs from his wonderful new album "Low in High School". He has added some marvelous surprises also. Those include "Glamorous Glue", " I Started Something I Couldn't Finish.", "I'm Not Sorry", "Hold On To Your Friends" and last night in Chicago "Munich Air Disaster 1958". His new album has hit number 5 in the UK charts in its first week. It's well deserved, as this album is a great one.

                                                                Glamorous Glue

                                                  I Started Something I Couldn't Finish

                                                                 These Dreams

Le Tombeau de Charles Baudelaire

The buried temple empties through its bowels,

Sepulchral sewer spewing mud and rubies,

Abominably some idol of Anubis,

Its muzzle all aflame with savage howls.

 

Or if the recent gas the wick befouls

That bears so many insults, it illumines

In haggard outline an immortal pubis

Flying along the streetlights on its prowls.

 

What wreaths dried out in cities without prayer

Of night could bless like that which settles down

Vainly against the marble of Baudelaire

 

In the fluttering veil that girds her absence round,

A tutelary poison, his own Wraith,

We breathe in always though it bring us death.

Stephane Mallarme

Darkness

Compliments of Byron

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moon­less air; 
Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings--the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour
They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky, 
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless--were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again:--a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought--and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails--men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a Gorse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress--he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects--saw, and shriek'd, and died--
Even of their mutual hideousness they
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless,
A lump of death--a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them--She was the Universe.

Fortissimo

Our Moz has begun his US Tour with stops in Portland, Seattle and San Francisco. In addition to new songs from "Low In High School" Moz has added a few exciting wrinkles to his concerts. In Portland he added a song he has never played live before, the raucous "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish". And quite a stunner it was.

                                                               Our Moz at his finest.

                      "I grabbed you by the Heinz Baked Beans, that's what tradition means."

                                           A well deserved ovation for Moz and The Boys

At his concert in San Francisco, Moz sang one of my favorites for the first time in 25 years, "Glamorous Glue".  He sang it 25 years ago, November 14, 1992,  on Saturday Night Live. He opened the San Francisco show, which was Saturday November 4, 2017 by saying "It's Saturday Night Live!" As of now, there is no Youtube video of "Glamorous Glue" in San Francisco. I sure hope a video will pop up sometime as I love that song.

                The closing credits and ending of Saturday Night Live with Mozza as musical guest.
                                     Would be nice if he were invited back again this season.
                            FYI - Michael Keaton and Heinz Baked Beans are from Pittsburgh.

WOW and I mean WOW!! A video has appeared from the San Francisco concert of "Glamorous Glue". What an incredible live performance! Our Moz commands the stage like no other!!

Today was election day in the U.S.. It was mainly local elections. There were several Gubernatorial races, Virginia and New Jersey. In my neck of the woods, it was mainly local and some state judges. Our Moz would be disappointed in me as I supported the process and voted. Oh, you poor little fool!
Besides playing ice hockey and drinking, I spent a lot of the prior weekend thinking about Bobby Kennedy and what good would have happened if he had been elected President. I can't help that my idealistic self comes through at election time, so I voted. My one pet peeve at the polls is those people who hand out literature for their candidates in front of the polling location. I have to pass by them, I call it running the gauntlet. I try to get by them without acknowledging any of them or taking any of their propaganda. Today I was successful. I took a deep breath, put my head down and sprinted through their skirmish line. They tried their best but couldn't hook me. One guy said hi but I flew by, got to the door and even helped a lady inside who was walking with a cane. Fortunately, they ignore you when you come back outside after voting.

                                                                   Election Day