Hey Jilli! I saw a new collection of reasonably priced Bauhaus videos on DVD. I think it's just out.

At Amoeba I found a VHS of the Smashing Pumpkins videos for $5.99 so I got it. JZ kept saying that she'd never seen the video for "Tonight, Tonight" and I knew she'd like it. She declared it the greatest video she'd ever seen. (Then we had to go watch a bunch of silent films.)

Then I watched some other Smash Pump videos that I'd never seen. They had a lot of goth interest, Jilli. "Thirty Three" has all the scary doll girls and the Alice in Wonderland bits. And "Ava Adore" is like Nosferatu in Satyricon. Cool and creepy and stylish. And "Stand Inside Your Love" was Aubrey Beardsley's Salome done cyberpunky.

Hey Jilli! I saw a new collection of reasonably priced Bauhaus videos on DVD. I think it's just out.

Wah-ha-ha-ha? Ooooh.

Then I watched some other Smash Pump videos that I'd never seen. They had a lot of goth interest, Jilli.

Smashing Pumpkins had some *great* videos, but I can't stand the lead singer's voice.

Smashing Pumpkins had some *great* videos, but I can't stand the lead singer's voice.

Well...maybe put on some Bartok and watch them. Billy Corgan makes a great vampire in "Ava Adore." Tall and looming and Nosferatu in a cassock, wondering around through a decadent party/video shoot.

Well...maybe put on some Bartok and watch them.

Heh. I remember talking to a friend about how I didn't like Smashing Pumpkins because I thought the lead singer was intolerably whiny.

"But you listen to Morrisey, the King of Whiny!"

"That's a different sort of whiny. It doesn't make me want to hit people."

"That's a different sort of whiny. It doesn't make me want to hit people."

British whiny is cooler than American whiny. Especially when the British whiny is somewhat Wilde-esque. (In my head, anyway.)

British whiny is cooler than American whiny. Especially when the British whiny is somewhat Wilde-esque.

Exactly!

... and now I'm tempted to change my tag to "British whiny is cooler than American whiny."

Morrissey isn't just whiny, though. He's the Maestro of Miserablism. Nobody suffers as he suffers. He knows how Joan of Arc felt, when the flames rose to her Roman nose and her Walkman started to melt. (A line worthy of Cole Porter or Lorenz Hart, I've always thought.)

Nobody suffers as he suffers.

Which is why he is the best person EVER to listen to when you're feeling down. Because you can't be as depressed as him, so just start laughing. And singing along. Possibly with sweeping, dramatic hand gestures.

Possibly with sweeping, dramatic hand gestures.

Well, heaven knows you're miserable now. Yes, you must make the swoopy hand gestures. You should see the Morrissey live DVD in Manchester that came out this year. Kind of sweet watching this stadium half filled with midlands soccer hooligans singing their hearts out to "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out."

Other key videos of the evening: "Big Sky" - Kate Bush (they never show that one) and "Love's Easy Tears" - Cocteau Twins (with Liz sporting one of her more distinctive hairstyles. But pretty still.)

"That's a different sort of whiny. It doesn't make me want to hit people."

Whioch is true, because while Morrissey might whine, but he doesn't sound like a spoiled five-year-old when he does it.