MarkCity

Wednesday, May 12, 2004
 
Blogger have just relaunched and added lots of new features, so I should be able to post here simply by sending in an email.  If you're reading this, it works.  Which means I'll be able to update this site a lot more often, without having to fiddle around.  Of course, fiddling around is one of my favourite things, but that's another story.
 
I've just booked tickets to see Belle and Sebastian at Somerset House, on the banks of the Thames, in July.  Butter has agreed to come despite her loathing for all things B&S.  She dislikes them almost as much as she dislikes Morrissey.  Well, she can't have good taste in all matters.  Moz's new single is glorious.  Which leads me on to the gig in LA.  I'm going to have to do this California thing in fragments.
 
Darren and I went to see Morrissey in the rather splendid Wiltern Theater (it's on Wilshire and Western, hence the name) in Los Angeles.  I know - gig of a lifetime or what?  Don't say 'or what'.  The crowd was made up of a mixture of thirtysomething nostalgics, like us, and teenage girls.  It's quite strange seeing young women screaming for Morrissey - but then Des Lynam and Sean Connery are always winning sexiest man polls, so being an older man clearly has some benefits.  And Morrissey has amazing stage presence, bowing and sharing jokes with the audience, tearing through a mixture of songs from the new album, old solo stuff and, blissfully, a number of Smiths songs, including 'There is a Light...'  Fantastic.  And at the end, when he tore off his shirt, the young foxtresses beside us squealed with delight.
 
On the way home, we were chatted up by three American girls and a man with a handbag.  Only one of the girls was paralytic.  They wanted us to accompany them to an 80s club but I explained that our girlfriends were waiting for us at our hotel.
 
'You should ditch them and get American girlfriends,' they said.  Which would sort out my green card problem.  But, like good, loyal blokes, we went home to our Brit-birds.  Who didn't seem particularly grateful when we told them about the sacrifice we'd made the next morning.