In Things You Never Want to Read in an Email

My Londoner Andy sends me an email, which reads, ominously and in full: "Just saw you on YouTube." Following was a link. What on earth had he found? I dreaded to find out, and probably held my breath as I clicked through.

Well, it could have been worse! It was ancient footage of a meet-and-greet with Morrissey in Chicago, 1991—hosted by the Smithishly named erstwhile XRT DJ/institution Johnny Marrs—for which I'd won a spot by sending in a postcard to a contest being held by Chicago radio station XRT. I've blogged about it before, too; here you can see images of Todd (the contributor formerly known as Mr. Furious) and me getting autographs and chatting with the man himself. I was 17 at the time—holy Maude!

Todd and I are all the way on the right (looking at Mozza), in the first row:


Andy called me and laughed while I watched it, cringing and laughing and full of disbelief. "I can't believe you found this!" I exclaimed.

Andy: It's your fault. You got me back into Morrissey after making me listen to "The Queen is Dead" the other day, so I've been searching out Morrissey stuff on YouTube.

Me: You're a total freak for recognizing me in this grainy-ass old video. [laughing hugely now at this point]

Andy: I remembered your saying you'd met him in Chicago a few times, so I had that in mind when I saw this was in Chicago.

Me: Still. Omigod. I'm in for like two seconds. Hilarious that you found this.

Andy: Did you know the footage existed?

Me: Sure, it played on JBTV back in the day. I can't believe someone had it on tape, though—I don't even have this on tape! Wild.

Andy: You're going to blog about this, aren't you?

Me: Yes, and the theme will be that you're a freaking psycho for recognizing me.