I didn't intend to blog for a few days, as I wanted to leave 'The History of Morrissey's Blue Rose Society' (that I posted Thursday) as my home page, but twitter events over the past couple of days have got my juices flowing.
On Thursday evening, I was casually watching Germany play Italy at football on the telly, and decided to peek into Twitterdilly to see if there was anything happening. I found 'Our Mozzer' (@MorrisseysWorld) in full swing. He had tweeted his former lodger/friend/photographer/minder Jake Walters (@JakeWalters) to say "Thank you for the photographs." Jake replied "photographs? One must presume that JW knows nothing about MW!
MW then had a pop at presenters Andrew Neil (@afneil) and Jeremy Clarkson (@jcrclarksonesq), before then suggesting that Falkland Islanders come to England, where "everyone (else) is welcome", "including Al Qaeda."
When asked if he was looking forward to watching The Stone Roses, 'Our Mozzer' replied "Hearing an unkempt busker rap while a blues rock band noodles in the background isn't my idea of fun."
It was MW's next tweet that suddenly sent tweeters reacting in very different ways. Replying to a boring tweet from presenter Danny Baker (@prodnose), MW tweeted, "Cancer and Danny Baker can both ruin one's life but only Danny Baker can ruin a funeral." This tweet would possibly have gone unnoticed, except for the fact that apparently Danny Baker has just recovered from cancer, something I was completely unaware of (having not heard of Danny Baker for about the last 10 years), and something Morrissey was also obviously unaware of. As various people laid into MW for such a 'heartless' tweet, MW apologised to Danny Baker, but the knockers wouldn't leave it alone.
One of the first to have a go at MW was Stephen Berrells (@Sberrells), a former 'half believer' of MorrisseysWorld, (he has recently declared he DEFINITELY doesn't believe now - at least he's off the fence at last, the splinters must've been killing him) who tweeted to say "Making cancer jokes to a man who's just recovered from it? Yet people still believe you're Morrissey? A new low." MW responded to the various attackers by saying "Nothing brings the silent majority out like a sanctimonious posturing. I apologised. I didn't know. Get a grip." I tweeted MW to say "I am a football fan, but had no idea about Danny Baker having cancer. Don't beat yourself up, I'm sure others will do it!" MW replied "I only remember DB as being an annoying self-possessed bore on daytime TV in the 90's. Illness doesn't change this."
MW then tweeted one of his most honest and controversial tweets to date, which proved MORE THAN EVER that he REALLY IS MORRISSEY. He said "Cancer would be a walk in the park compared to what I have been through." WOW! I tweeted back "Christ, you REALLY don't care do you! And I love you for that too!" As more people laid into MW, he fired back at the sanctimonious/holier than thou/never done anything wrong mob, by tweeting "Some of you support murder, consumption of flesh, war, vivisection; while those same people lambast me as cruel for words I say." THIS WAS NO LONGER 'PARODY MORRISSEY', THIS WAS 'REAL' MORRISSEY, SHOOTING FROM THE HIP. The next tweet from MW said "Are jokes about cancer now on the official list of things one is not permitted to mention in modern England?"
STILL the attackers kept coming, with Viki (@shebangsthedrum) tweeting "saying its a walk in the park completely undermines the horrendous battle that people face when fighting this disease." MW replied "Depression and hopelessness are a nightmare too. The difference is that they last longer than cancer. Sometimes a lifetime."
This is an interesting point made by MW, why does anybody with cancer get so much more sympathy than somebody with a different form of illness? Another interesting point is also raised by this whole debate; what some people find offensive, others DON'T!
Since the MW blog started, we have seen much evidence of what Morrissey finds offensive and what others THINK he SHOULD find offensive. Rosy Mires got very upset about MorrisseysWorld using the images of the Moors Murderers, Aurora found it offensive that MW joked about Whitney Houston's death, Stephen Berrells finds cancer jokes offensive, and ALL of these things have been used as EVIDENCE that MW isn't Morrissey. They believe that the REAL Morrissey is a sweet and gentle person, who would hurt nobody. HAVE THEY MISSED ALL OF THE OUTSPOKEN COMMENTS MADE BY MORRISSEY OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS?
Of course the best comedians in the world aren't frightened of any subject, they push barriers and there is NO taboo subject. Morrissey has a similar outlook, he doesn't give two figs about what people think, he says what he wants. The likes of Rosy Mires quote that the REAL Morrissey can be seen by the words in his songs, "It takes strength to be gentle and kind", but when has Morrissey EVER claimed that HE possesses that strength? And what is more, those words were written nearly thirty years ago, and since then, Morrissey has been dragged through 26.2 miles (a marathon) of shit!
I personally find NOTHING offensive. My father died of cancer when I was eleven, but I can joke about it. Cancer isn't Al Qaeda, it isn't an organised terrorist group, it is an illness, in the same way that depression is an illness, and yet for some reason, those who survive cancer are held in much higher esteem than those who cope with mental disorders. Cancer almost seems to be a word that people daren't say. It is the anti-christ of all illnesses, and if you beat it, you are a mighty warrior, where as if you have a mental illness, you are a nutter, and you should just 'snap out of it'. Anybody who says you can't compare the two is wrong, you can. People with mental illness are often ridiculed, where as people with cancer, or indeed a physical illness, are sympathised with. Personally, I say take the piss out of everybody, laugh in the face of everything.
My brother died at the young age of thirty seven, but when this ever comes up in conversation, I joke about it, I tell people that he was very badly burnt. When they offer their sympathy, I simply explain that he was cremated! Am I sick, or do I just possess a black humour? My brother actually died because he ate crap food, smoked too much, and drank to excess. The coroner said his arteries had more fur than Susan Boyle's chuff (he didn't really say that, Susan Boyle wasn't around when my brother died. Well, actually, she would have been around, but not in the public eye, she would have been living in Scotland with her mother, but as I couldn't think of anybody else who might have a particularly hairy fanny, she's in my story. Susan Boyle may of course have a really tidy fanny, in which case I apologise to her. She may have a Brazilian for all any of us know, but my visualisation of Boyle's 'Jackie Danny' is that of a particularly overgrown and unkempt forest!) and that an early death was inevitable. People take life far too seriously, if we all learned to laugh more, the world would be a better place.
If the world believed that MW was Morrissey, there is no doubt the whole Danny Baker cancer story would be all over the newspapers by now, and Morrissey would once again be hung out to dry by the haters and those with no sense of humour. Ironically, the majority of those having a go at him in this instance, are his so called fans, the ones who don't have the intelligence to work out that MW IS Morrissey. I can't wait to see HOW they react when it finally dawns on them that MW IS Morrissey. If they have any sense in their convictions, they will denounce him, they will burn his records, and they will say he is not the man they wanted him to be. They won't of course, they will conveniently sweep everything under the carpet and fawn all over him. It's a funny old world, it's MorrisseysWorld.
