The diaries of Kenneth Williams, a British comedian who starred in many of the bawdy, slapstick, working-class Carry On films that Morrissey loves, were published recently. In them, Williams, a gay man ill at ease with his own sexuality who lived in semi-isolation, talked frequently about the desirability of death.
"Have you read the diaries?" I ask.
"Of course," he answers.
"I thought in a lot of ways Williams was quite similar to you," I say. "Which is not a great compliment, obviously."
The warning laugh comes again. "Obviously he was powerfully unhappy from birth to death," says Morrissey, "and embedded with hatred for everyone around him."
"But also found intimacy rather repulsive."
"Yes, but I wonder whether that wasn't simply because he finds himself repulsive and couldn't possibly believe that anybody else could ever want him. And," he says, changing gear from third person to second, "if you feel that way, then nobody else does want you." I have lost track of exactly who he's talking about here. Himself or Williams. He says he had to stop reading the diaries because he found them so depressing. "But I suppose," he says, "all these things are embedded within us at a very early age and you simply go through life repeating the same mistakes. There's nothing you can do about it because all those emotions are cast in stone."
"There are lots of people who make a living saying they are not cast in stone."
Morrissey lowers his voice and answers, "That's a blatant lie. Occasionally people like Gloria Steinem come up with interesting comments like 'It's never too late to have a happy childhood.' But it is."
"What did your psychiatrists tell you?"
"For the most part they listened, which is very excrutiating to me."
