Finally, a post that's not about my tits

It’s about Morrissey’s tits! You heard me. I had the distinct pleasure of viewing Mr. Morrissey’s man-boobs not once, but several times last night during his record-short 70 minute concert in Jacksonville. The poor man is a sweater of mammoth proportion. By the third song we were on shirt #2, and it went on as such for the whole show. Shirts were tossed into the crowd after they were sufficiently soaked with Moz juice, and he dutifully wiped his wet palms on his pants before shaking hands with the front row. He’s a very polite dude.

I’ve never pretended to be a big fan of the Moz, although I tolerate him much better than when I first met my super-fan of a husband. I remember the first time I heard “Please Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” on the college radio station in Asheville. I was so PLEASED that there was a decent Smiths song, something that didn’t make me want to drive nails into my eyeballs, that I admitted to my future husband that OK, the band didn’t suck all that bad. So he started a campaign to win me over. When I read “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, I was introduced to “Asleep”, which, OK, IS about suicide, but it’s such sweet sweet suicide that I fell in love with the song. “Skin Storm” made it onto one of our first Love mixes, and little by little I found myself if not a FAN so much, at least appreciative.

Because I’m just a marginal listener, sort of a dabbler in the Moz, if you will- I was unprepared for the fervor of the crowd. He barely sang at all really, since the audience managed to sing every verse to every song in the set list. When the band played the opening chords of How Soon Is Now, the guy in front of me literally started head banging, jumping up and down and clapping his friends on the back while screaming the words. I have to say it was easy enough to imagine this guy 25 years ago, moping around his room on Saturday night in his Cavaricci’s with the fold & roll, IDENTIFYING, perhaps even belting out “I am human and I need to be LOVED!”.

I joke, but I am a person who can still sing along to every word of every song on Disintegration, and I cried the first time I saw the Cure 17 years ago. If my husband hadn’t been snickering beside me, I might have cried three years ago when we saw them in California.

I confess that had Morrissey performed “Asleep” I probably would have cried a little.