Via bookish blev jeg gjort opmærksom pÃ¥ et helt fantastisk ikke-interview om interviews. Og bedre endnu – det er skrevet af Douglas Coupland (vigtigst af alt manden bag “Generation X“), som ikke-interviewer Morrissey. ‘Nuff said. Ikke-interviewet skulle egentlig have været et interview, men da begge mænd er ret trætte af interviews, bliver Couplands Sony plastik-diktafon nede i tasken. Næsten. Der er masser af gode passager, men for lige at give nogle af de bedre væk, sÃ¥ den dovne ikke behøver læse hele skidtet:
To me, interviews are mostly about trying not to make the interviewer think I’m too much of an asshole. I think that’s the experience with most interviews these days, mine and most everybody else’s. Let’s face it, pretty much any info you need is already out there on Google … Remember – if you don’t want people thinking you’re an asshole, it means you allow your interviewer to torture you. It all boils down to how strongly you believe in the totemic Sony
His head (this is really weird, and I hope it doesn’t go outside the boundaries of taste) is enormous. It’s like a huge Charlie Brown parade float head. I walked into the bar to meet him and I saw this guy across the room with this massive head and I thought to myself, ‘Man, that’s one massive head’, and it was Morrissey
I think (and this is based on meeting him and having read much of his press over the years) he has an almost clinical, Tourette’s-like need to blurt out thoughtless things to people, and he’s not even aware he’s doing it, so when people retaliate, he genuinely has no idea why. When, as a joke, I removed the tape recorder from my attaché case, he looked at it and said: ‘Oh. It’s plastic.’
Men det er ikke kun et meta-ikke-interview – Coupland kommer rent faktisk ogsÃ¥ ind pÃ¥ en mere anmelder-agtig gennemgang af Morrisseys kommende album, “Ringleader of the Tormentors”. Han synes rigtig godt om albummet, men de bedste citater er sÃ¥dan set om hans praktiske problemer med at afspille albummet og hans korte og meget simple gennemgang af en Morrissey-for-ikke-kendere:
Owing to the music industry’s near-paralysing fear of pirating, none of the many watermarked CDs sent to me in Canada worked on any system I could find – my own, those of friends and neighbours – and I finally ended up listening to it for the first time while lying on my Roman bed with three-quarters of a hangover and a white plastic battery-powered Logitech portable minispeaker resting on my rib cage. It was connected to an iPod that shifted between mono and stereo at whim. Even with all of this ridiculousness, the album worked perfectly. I was told I could have four hours with the album and machine, except I got a phone call from a handler at the two and a half-hour mark saying that Morrissey was bored and wanted to do the interview earlier. OK. Whatever.
I’d like to compare his sound to a mixture of other performers, but that’s not quite possible, for he’s unique. His persona, though, honed over two decades, is mixture of the best parts of Quentin Crisp, Engelbert Humperdinck, the New York Dolls and a patient dressed in a white terry cloth robe in a Swiss tuberculosis sanatorium waiting to die. OK, maybe the robe is black. And maybe it’s not Switzerland, either – it’s Manchester in 1983. But you get the picture.
Desuden blev jeg rent faktisk klogere af at læse artiklen: Jeg anede ikke, at Douglas Coupland havde nappet en bog-titel fra en The Smiths-titel. Coupland tyv-stjal titlen til “Girlfriend in a Coma” (1997) fra The Smiths’ nummer (der havde samme navn, dumbwit) fra “Strangeways, Here We Come” (1987). Desuden er bogen fyldt med et hav af referencer til andre numre af The Smiths/Morrissey. Kool. Den mÃ¥ jeg jo sÃ¥ læse engang … nÃ¥r jeg har memoreret alle sange af The Smiths og Morrissey. Det kan ikke være meget mere end 20 albums. Giv mig et sted mellem 3 sekunder og 54 Ã¥r, sÃ¥ skulle jeg være klar til at læse.
Tags: mac, Manchester
