I recently returned to Wales after a trip to London and as I stepped foot through the door, I was greeted with a letter from the the Metropolitan Police in London. It turns out that my name has popped up in the News of the World phone hacking case and they are investigating as I type. In truth, I would have also been gutted to think I wasn't worth at least a little hack! Imagine being deemed by the people at News of the World as not being in the the top 8,000 most interesting people?
Joking aside, if the police confirm that I have indeed been hacked, and even though this will have been years ago, I will still sue. I couldn't abide NOTW, so I won't be losing sleep in suing them. The joke to me is that in the period they are talking about, whoever had the pleasure to get into my voicemail would have just been faced with hour-long Courtney Love rambles from LA about her new songs at 5am UK time. I hope they enjoyed their hack there (if obviously it happened) and I pity them having to listen to all that madness...
Anyway, as I said I was up in London earlier in the week and whilst there, I made my now frequent trip to Treadwell's shop and bought myself a copy of Rebels & Devils edited by Christopher J Hyatt. It's a life-changer of a book. It sucked me in from the foreword: 'In all human history, the essence of the human mind has been to think and act according to standards from within, not without. To follow one's own path, not that of the crowd. Inevitably, it follows that anyone with an independent mind must become, as the dictionary says, one who resists or opposes an authority or established convention - a rebel. Usually rebellion is done so quietly no-one notices but, when others recognise the rebel's disobedience, we then have a rebel with a capital 'R'. If enough people come to agree with, and follow the Rebel, we now have a devil. On the other hand, if enough follow the devil, we may then have a leader, a hero, a martyr, an innovator or any number of good things. Rebels and devils create.'
This book links in Crowley, Austin, Osman, Spare, Peter J Carroll, Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, Jack Parsons, Israel Regardie and the Marquis de Sade - all rebels and this book just joins the dots.
Whilst I was in town, I was also invited by Howard Panter and his wife Rosemary Squire to watch the play Jerusalem. I somehow made the assumption that it would be about Christianity, which turned out to be completely wrong. It actually blew my mind. The main character reminded me of a guy called Steve Malloy who was an old skool Primal Scream roadie. Overnight, I was converted and I became a fan of theatre. It was as raw as you could want it to be. Get a ticket to that show. Even if you don't now, it will turn you onto theatre. I have never got theatre before I saw Jerusalem. But now I'm in. Which is lucky as it seems I'm getting more and more involved with Dean Cavanagh and Irvine Welsh. We now have the TV idea we are working on kicking around and now we are eyeing up doing something in the West End. Theatre is the new rock 'n' roll? Anyway, again - Jerusalem is mind-blowing!
This week - well, today - actually also sees me take a trip to Leicester to DJ for my friend Alex Lowe who is having an exhibition of his paintings. It will be a great night and I am pleased to say our collaboration - The Aquarian Conspiracy - is now well underway. We are halfway through getting the first idea together, which will be around 23 paintings. You'll be able to see it all unfold online by Spring 2012, I just need to get the 'signals' sorted out!
In a couple of weeks, I'll be taking a trip to see the cops in Putney about the News of the World bollocks and then, to really start taking a walk on the wild side, our book project where we come clean on my bizarre little life in book form with the gentleman and scholar - Mr Harry Mulligan.
Some thoughts...
Today does not completely determine tomorrow and much less next week.
If intelligent aliens haven't shown up within a decade or two, we will probably have made our own.
Chemistry undid personality.
Physics undid determinacy.
Biology will soon undo most of our preconceptions about 'human beings' and memory modification will eventually undo the rest.
The key of joy is disobedience.