Re: I win
So it's true: you are neither a vegetarian nor a vegan. So everyone on this site has been subjected to endless posts about the cruelty of the meat and dairy industries from folks who actively support the meat and dairy industries. What a phenomenal waste of time.
I am intimately familiar with the mechanisms of fame, celebrity and media "stardom." I also understand the nature of fandom - how it is generated, manipulated and lost. Had you stopped at your last sensible post you would have finished ahead of the conversation. As it is you are beating several dead horses. Morrissey is a great singer with a unique persona. He almost instantly attained legendary status, but even legends - even icons - fade over time. Morrissey was able to generate a singular level of audience hysteria and maintain it for decades. He is a phenomenal singer, an (intermittently) brilliant lyricist, and one of the greatest showmen to ever tread the boards. Nothing that is said on this (or any other) website can diminish his accomplishments. Morrissey is the only one who can wreck his career (and he doesn't need much help in that department).
No one I know who is a "fan" pays as much attention to Morrissey these days as you do. You are railing against a cult in which you are certainly one of the most active members.
No, it isn't true. I am a vegan. If you had read a representative sample of my posts you would know that I have clearly stated that. You have not read a representative sample but choose to lather me with your home-spun philosophies whilst claiming you understand my weltanschauung. It is YOU who have wasted your time and the time of anyone who has taken your breathless analysis of my posts to heart. What a phenomenal waste of time!
Your claims to an 'intimate' relationship with the mechanics of fame, celebrity and the rest of it is untestable and also irrelevant. One does not need to be part of a cultural car-crash to recognise it. Post-war fame was a product of limited technologies of sound and media reproduction and the deliberate scorched earth policies of media corporations to create artificial shortages in culture which were sold and re-sold as 'stars'.
"Morrissey is a great singer with a unique persona. He almost instantly attained legendary status, but even legends - even icons - fade over time. Morrissey was able to generate a singular level of audience hysteria and maintain it for decades. He is a phenomenal singer, an (intermittently) brilliant lyricist, and one of the greatest showmen to ever tread the boards. Nothing that is said on this (or any other) website can diminish his accomplishments."
I could re-write that paragraph with the names of Cesaria Evora, Julio Iglesias or Sabah and find endorsement for that view in Lisbon, Madrid and Cairo. You confuse your own London/NYC/LA cliques with the world. Morrissey is not famous! Madonna and Michael Jackson are famous. If he had managed his personal and business affairs with more sense he had a brief opportunity to become a global celebrity but f***ed it up. He certainly had the talent. He wrecked his career from the outset by mimicking the discarded detritus of a derelict 'fame' model based on Bowie and Bolan whilst also trying to position himself as a punk rebel. The two personas never gelled and he became a casuality of both his own tortured reading of the history of celebrity and his assumption that it would continue in a linear fashion allowing him to become and remain a 'star'. He is no such thing. The industrial production and consumption of pseudo-stars has happened even beyond Warhol's quip. He is just another also extremely talented singer with a niche cult. However, he tragically devoted his life at the outset to achieving 'global, religious fame' and failed, so all his outbursts and ravings since can be understood in that context.
The fact that you have a massive investment both in his failed career and the failed apparatus of 'fame' is challenging for you, but I couldn't care less, it certainly doesn't give you any credence to challenge my analyses without actually addressing the issues I've raised. You merely express the cult consensus of his 'fans' with your assumption that he will be remembered long after he stops singing and/or drops dead. By his cult, yes, but not by consensual reality. That process is beginning in earnest as he struggles for media coverage and resorts to ever more outlandish attempts to remain 'radical' and 'edgy'. His supposed 'instant legendary status' is laughable. You are seriously suggesting that a few covers of the NME and Melody Maker mean 'legendary'? To the self-congratulatory hipsters of the time, maybe, but most young people I know make a clear distinction between heritage acts and whilst they may enjoy How Soon Is Now and a few other tracks, the mythology of The Smiths is nothing compared to genuine 'legendary' acts such as Led Zeppelin and The Beatles.
If you bothered to read my comments (which you clearly don't) you'd see that I have frequently openly stated that Morrissey is Exhibit A for the doomed projects of Youth Rebellion and Youth Stardom. I have also lambasted other supposed 'legends' such as Leonard Cohen though not to the same extent as I chose Morrissey as the perfect example of everything that is bogus and deluded about the entire superstructure of The Pop Artist. My choice has proven to be particularly useful as he implodes upon his bonfire of vanities.
Again, I can only repeat to you that I am not a 'fan' and never have been. Not of Morrissey or anybody else. If I pay £ to purchase either a consumer commodity or live experience from a capitalist business entrepreneur such as Morrissey, the fact that I find emotional satisfaction and amusement in his ventilations doesn't make me anything more than a member of The Audience. Morrissey has turned out to be an entirely reactionary figure, demanding deference from the press, lavish promotional budgets to foist his mediocrities onto those he decries as "clueless consumers" and above all, insisting that a rigged market controlled by 4 major corporations and a handful of print titles meant that he was anything other than a lucky winner of the NME/Melody Maker Paul Morley/Ian Penman X-Factor show in early 80s Britain. How he wishes such a world of gatekeepers and taste-makers still existed to ensure he remained visible on the basis of his achingly obscure curation of culture being endorsed by equally snobbish elites.
I am not a member of The Cult Of Morrissey. I am not a 'fan' of Morrissey, though I do extract great pleasure from watching and listening to his curated fictions of 'fame'. Implicit in your claim is that singers such as Morrissey are *special* or *different* beyond the fact that he managed to briefly hijack the FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) cycle to sell his USP (unique selling point) of fake suicidalism, faux-animal rights, Johnny Rotten re-hash Republicanism and on and on. However, shows like The Voice and X-Factor show us that supremely gifted singers are not rare. Without Johnny Marr as Musical Auteur, Morrissey would never even have been able to afford the singing lessons which lifted his voice from ordinary to exemplary. You do realise how much he's worked on his technical range? Or do you assume it's some *mysterious gift*? *rollseyes*
I could expound at greater length but as you don't even read my comments before setting yourself up as an authority on their content, I'll leave it there. Other than to note that as a Vegan I would never beat any horse, dead or alive. The fact that I've picked up on your covert insult should reassure you that I am, indeed, a Vegan.
I trust this further reply is helpful to you.
best
BB
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its also silly to say that someone has to be perfect in order to praise them for the efforts and accomplishments. if so, we would never praise anyone ever. perspective is a good thing.
Nobody is being prevented from praising anybody's efforts and accomplishments.
best
BB
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Just to clarify. I would hardly say that BB has "won me over". Won what? Over where? As I have stated many times in the past, I enjoy reading his posts. That is it. They are well constructed, well written, and often times quite amusing. He has a sense of humor that I get, that maybe many others don't or don't like. That is the extent of it. To use this as a definition of "winning one over", then you, RB, BB, bhops, Anethstine (sp), and many others have won me over.
Let's be clear, I am a carnivore...I enjoy eating meat, eggs and cheese. BB and others have made me more aware of the impact of the dietary choices I make, but I have a different belief system than probably many here when it comes to this aspect of life. So be it. No one will win me over in this regard. That also doesn't mean that I can't appreciate how a song like Meat is Murder could change a person's feelings on the subject. One thing BB has right is that there is an overabundance of name calling and attempted bullying on this site than reasonable discourses with those of differing opinions. These make for the most interesting reading.
It has though been suggested on this site that I might be a bad lay...and this I will neither confirm nor deny
Just to clarify. I have no desire or intention to win you over to my perspectives. Or anybody else. I am also unlikely to respond to feeble attempts to 'bully' me because of my opinions by doing anything other than LOLing. I trust this clarifies my position, but couldn't care less if it doesn't.
best
BB