Take a Walk on the Wild Side

The bad side (of the internet) are the freaks. But you know even then they make me laugh with the advent of the keyboard gladiators. I have encountered all types through the online world, but there is one which even by my own weird adventures was the biggest freak I have ever met yet.

I love technology, and since the internet came to life, the world become a much smaller place. My Blackberry crashed in Japan not that long ago back in August, but through Facebook could just about contact everybody I needed to get hold of. So that is the upside of this small techno-world.

The bad side..the freaks. But you know even then they make me laugh with the advent of the keyboard gladiators. I have encountered all types through the online world, but there is one which even by my own weird adventures was the biggest freak I have ever met yet.

In the late Nineties at the end of Creation Records, just before I sold the rest of the shares to Sony, I was contacted in a very fanboy kind of way by a girl called 'April' who lived overseas. The relationship was cordial at best. We never met as she lived abroad and there was no sexual innuendo just streams and streams of emails from 'April'. She knew a lot about Creation, more than even me. This continued for a while until suddenly 'April' disappeared completely and I gave no more thought to it.

About six months later, post some kind of drug-induced breakdown, I received an email explaining that 'April' was in fact a man. She/he had basically been having some kind of massive hoax on me and a load of other people which had eventually climaxed and backfired badly on her/him. With me it was just a load of, as I said, rubbish fanboy emails such as asking how Martin Carr or Liam Gallagher were. However with the other men, 'April' had led them on massively and some were even on the verge of leaving partners to move in with her! The hoax had gone too far and she/he had freaked out.

Eventually, the highly strung 'April' (who from now on we will for his sake call 'John') and some friend, who I think were crystal meth mates, together were playing the whole duality card and had became very screwed up by it. Basically the joke now was on them. They couldn't keep it up any longer. 'John' to be fair was a very good version online as an 'April' - he pulled it off well. Anyway at the time I told him to piss off, which he did, as I thought I should be annoyed but the truth was I found it all very funny. Of course I wasn't annoyed, deep down I knew I had found an online freak to enjoy.

I knew he would reappear and of course he did. He reappeared online on AOL messenger about year later, but this time berating me about Martin Carr and something or other which I had said about the track Wake Up Boo. Anyway, I let this all slide and I forgave him. I was amused at how bonkers this person was and from there, me and 'John' went on again to be online acquaintances. However, from then on, to my absolute delight we never mentioned 'April' again and he basically amused me for the next 10 years.

At one stage 'John' moved to the UK and we got to meet up occasionally, which was funnier still as he was even a bigger freak in person. He eventually got married to a girl who was his reason for the move after, of course, meeting on the internet. The poor woman! She was actually really nice and put up with him for quite a while before divorcing him. Anyway I digress, as I said I knew 'John' throughout the next decade, mostly online with about 20 emails a day of complete rubbish, but all amusing too me. I always in my head knew him as 'April' so to me it was just a very very funny joke and never failed to make me laugh.

As was his style, he then again disappeared. From what I gathered, his life here had fallen apart and he headed back home overseas for a short spell. The last I had heard of 'April' or 'John', he was still 'John' and 'April' had not re-emerged and is now back in England and living up north somewhere as a fitness freak. Maybe he's changed and isn't a total agoraphobic recluse, who knows. As for 'April', well she could reappear tomorrow, maybe she's currently emailing someone now. In truth 'April' was nicer than 'John' anyway.

I am about to embark on a book of short stories with Harry Mulligan of Vice and she will have her very own chapter. 'April', take a walk on the wild side....

Some more thoughts:

A tempestuous sex life is not a side effect of being a great artist, rather it is the art which is a side effect of a tempestuous sex life.

A fanatical religion does not create the suppression of celibacy. It is the tensions of celibacy which create a fanatical religion.

A society sexually at peace with itself would present a very dull spectacle indeed.

I properly listened to my son Dan Devine's band Flats this last week when i was away in Japan and Australia and I hope this doesn't sound nepotistic, because I mean it with sincerity, but they really are a wonderful band. Flats are just what is needed to wake up music in 2011. As Dan recently has said himself in Artrocker "We're the closest thing to a real punk band around" and who could doubt conviction like that.

Nothing is real. Everything is permitted.

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