God Blame the Queen
This just in: Black is white. Night is day. Johnny Rotten’s a peacenik, while Morrissey’s full of rage.
We know, we know. HOH is only supposed to dish dirt about political types grandstanding on this side of the pond. But all the hoopla surrounding Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee is too awesome to ignore — particularly once Britain’s rock royalty began popping off at the mouth about the headline-grabbing affair.
Morrissey, the impeccably coiffed crooner who graduated from Smiths frontman to solo artist extraordinaire, is so disgusted with the state-sponsored gala he simply unloaded on the entire monarchy to the fan site, True to You:
The soul is tried all over again as the jackboot of dictatorship strangles England. This week, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee presents a new lesson in the force of tyranny and is an expression of loathing and abhorrence of the British poor — and all done, quite naturally, at the public’s expense! It is degrading to anyone of intelligence. While dictatorships throughout the Middle East are gently condemned by the British government, there is no examination of the extremism enforced by the British ‘royals,’ who remain the most overpaid and most utterly useless people on the planet. Having done nothing to earn our respect, they demand everything by return. It is a cunning and extravagant form of benefit fraud.
Rotten, the former face of the Silver Jubilee-crashing Sex Pistols, has apparently re-evaluated his anarchy-embracing youth, estimating now that he wouldn’t want to live the life he espoused then.
“I don’t believe in anarchy, because it will ultimately amount to the power of the bully, with weapons. Gandhi is my life’s inspiration: passive resistance,” Lydon told The Guardian, adding, “I don’t want to live in the Thunderdome with Mad Max.”
The acerbic singer, who has been living stateside for decades, loves his semi-anonymous existence in America (“They give you freedom of space.”), bristles at GOP orthodoxy (“Evangelist Republicans believe you’re poor because God doesn’t love you.”) and was at least mildly amused by the Occupy movement (“They had no leaders, which was genius. But unfortunately, it always ends up with some hippie playing a flute.”).
But perhaps the most amazing jubilee-related snippet had to be this totally inconceivable gem regarding the Spice Girls:
The Wannabe hitmakers were last year asked to appear at the gig, which took place outside Buckingham Palace in London on Monday, but declined due to their heavy workloads.