Re: In his own words

["Schrade, Scott" <sschrade@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> While he remains a prominent member of the ageing English rock aristoc-
> racy, it is also safe to assume that Townshend's chances of a knighthood 
> are now forever linked with the words 'snowball' and 'hell'.

Oh well.  That just leaves the door wide open for Daltrey then!

> Over coffee,.....

What?!  Pete drinks coffee?!

> He is speaking calmly, though occasionally he will rub his watery eyes, 
> or stare silently at the floor, in the manner of someone still convinced 
> that those events might yet turn out to be one long bad dream.

Poor Pete.  I can just picture him staring at the floor.

> 'I was having a cup of tea,....'

What?!  Pete drinks tea?! 

> and someone says, "Have you seen the Daily Mail?" I said, "No, I don't 
> take it", 

<snicker>  "Take it."

> and then they said, "It sounds like you, Pete", and I said, "Yeah, it 
> sounds like me."'

Outwardly, a rather calm reaction.  But just imagine the "Oh, shit" 
terror feeling that must've hit him at that precise moment.

> 'I went into deep panic and anxiety. I had sensed, or I knew that there 
> was a developing witch hunt in progress, and I thought, "Oh my God, this 
> is going to be hung on me."' 

Again, just imagine the shock of knowing your life was going to immediat-
ely change for the worse.  He must've been weak-kneed.

> The shock and disorientation of those first few hours, he says, are 
> still difficult describe. 'I was just spinning. 

Ugh.  Poor Pete.  

> It was a bit like being shot. 

Er....bad analogy there, Pete.  Shot?  What does Pete know about being 
shot?

> I very nearly went to the local police station. I was halfway there with 
> my girlfriend, then I said, "Maybe I shouldn't do this."'

Another clue which points to Pete's innocence.  Seems like right from the
start he was dying to contact the police & clear the matter up.  Of course,
it wasn't that simple, but it shows that, in Pete's mind, it was all just
a huge mistake. 

> Instead, he later emerged in his dressing gown 

(!)

> 'All the trouble I caused,' he says, shaking his head, 'was driven not 
> just by curiosity - this wasn't curiosity or, if it was, I promise you 
> it was not prurient. I know where my prurience begins and ends. I am not 
> a paedophile. I'm not. I'm not sexually attracted to children. 

A somewhat confusing statement (he never does get around to telling us 
what *did* drive him).  But at least he now realizes he did cause a butt-
load of trouble for a buttload of people.    

> But I'm certain of my own standing before God, which is the level at 
> which I'll be judged.'

Boy, *that* statement had to give Jon a case of tight trousers!  "God...."
Oh, Pete, you weak & fragile man.

> Though I had assumed we might tentatively broach the subject of his 
> subsequent arrest some way into the interview, Townshend seems remarkably 
> willing to talk about it, and in some depth. 

This is a very good sign.  He's moved way beyond shock & despair & is now
ready to pontificate on the ordeal.

> He is, though, a frustrating interviewee, given to wandering off into 
> areas that are only tangentially pertinent to the question at hand. 

Ha!  Another good sign!  That's normal Pete!

> This, I realise about halfway through the interview, is a Townshend 
> trait. 

Duh.

> Since then, he has, by his own admission, belatedly discovered that 
> reflection, rather than instant reaction, might be a more productive 
> route. 

A lesson learned.  Remember how his initial statements irked some of us?
I think Pete realizes he made a few "miscalculations" early on.
 
> 'What that one act did,' he says, 'was stop me completely in my tracks. 
> It paused my life. It made me wait. I've never had to wait ever in my 
> life for anything. I've never had to stop and wait while someone else 
> made a decision about the future of my life. It was a fucking long wait.'

This statement took me a bit by surprise.  I always thought Pete was more
grounded than that.  I mean, I knew he could be egotistical, but I didn't
realize the extent of his hubris (!).  Another lesson learned by Pete.

> along with all his diaries, DVDs, videos and photographs. 

Interesting.  We tend to think it was just his computers that were taken
& searched.  Man, they took everything!  Another clue showing Pete's
innocence.  Nothing was found in *all* that stuff!  Nothing.

> And who now had admitted to, well, what exactly? 

Ah, yes.  The big question.  

> Townshend, it appears, is still not entirely clear on this point.

Therefore, neither are we.

> Throughout the interview, perhaps unsurprisingly, Townshend does seem 
> to have some trouble accepting this. 

This isn't good.  Why does he keep saying what he did wasn't a crime 
when he did it when it *was* a crime?  Shouldn't his lawyers have cleared
that up for him?

> I know I broke the law legally, 

(!)  Excuse me?  

> This, in the words of John Carr, internet adviser to the children's 
> charity NCH [National Children's Home], is 'the realm of total fantasy'. 

Ouch.

> (Carr is actually a life-long fan of the Who, who tells me he has just 
> bought the band's retrospective box set for his son for Christmas.) 

Ha!  Funny they felt the need to include that bit of info.

> Perhaps Townshend, then, is thinking of a case at Southwark Crown Court 
> in 1998, 

Yeah, but shouldn't his lawyers have cleared all that up for him?

> he might now have been serving a five-year jail sentence. 'He is,' 
> says Carr, 'a very lucky man.'

Man, that hits home, doesn't it?  Pete truly got lucky.  He could've
been royally fucked.

> 'I know that I caused the most incredible chaos by that one single 
> neglectful careless act, the most incredible chaos. 

Accepting the blame.  Good.

> Unlike the Beatles, who were loveable, and the Stones who were sexual, 
> the Who were simply fucked up and angry. 

Ha!  Now *that* quote's a keeper!  Love it!

> 'I remember thinking, "Do they want me to kill myself?"'

Ugh.  Poor Pete.  Worse than the heroin days.  At the complete bottom.

> 'If I had had a gun, I would have shot myself. 

Good thing Pete doesn't own a gun.

> if I had shot myself, it would have been fucking awful because it 
> would have confirmed what everybody thought.'

Good thinking, Pete.

> When he made his statement to the press, though, the Who's lead singer, 
> Roger Daltrey, rang him in a rage. 'He was very angry. He was shouting, 
> "Anybody could have used that credit card." And I said, "Roger, I think 
> it was me." He's going, "You think? You think? For fuck's sake, you 
> couldn't have done it, you're confessing to something you didn't do."

Ha!  Daft Daltrey!  Doesn't even know what's going on!

> The public, too, seem to have had an incredible faith in Pete Townshend, 
> and their attitude was perhaps best summed up by an acquaintance of his 
> I spoke to last week. 'He's an artist and an artist with a conscience, 
> someone who worries and frets on our behalf about the state of the world. 
> He's abstract, and often wrong-headed, and, in this instance, he's been 
> a stupid fool. But, no, he's not a paedophile.'

Another good quote which sums up Pete.

> Was his grandmother violent towards him? 'Yes, she was.' And, it was 
> around this time that he was abused? 'You know, I don't remember, Sean. 
> What I do remember is a sense of disturbed eroticism. She was promiscuous,
> she was crazy, and she was seeing men, and she didn't lock my bedroom. I 
> think men came into my room.' 

He *thinks* men came into his room.  I'm still suspect of these fuzzy 
memories Pete may or may not have. 

> I shouldn't have associated my real and active ground-based charity 
> work with this mission, this white knight mission, to get this infor-
> mation across to the public that there was some correlation between 
> the child porn industry and the credit-card companies.'

I agree with this.  I know many of you think it was very admirable of
Pete to try to "slay Goliath," as it were, but I think it was just stupid.

> 'I'm not religious,' he says, 'but I am spiritual, 

Another round of tight trousers for Jon!  ;-o

> What, though, possessed him to access a pay-per-view child pornography 
> site, to take such a risk, to do something not accidentally but 
> intentionally, not to mention illegally? There are numerous other methods 
> of finding out about the subject - contacting organised bodies, the po-
> lice, academic research units?

Ya' gotta admit, this guy is asking the right questions.

> I thought that a 12 Step group would be a good thing to have on these 
> user groups,

12 Step group.  Bollocks.  New Age bollocks.    

> "Avoid this site - it's an FBI sting." 

(!)  Like the interviewer, I'm shocked that it actually said this.  The
FBI had a warning *telling* people a sting was going on?

> and yet you took out your credit card and accessed the site? 
> 'Yeah. I was really, really curious, and I think that's the mistake I 
> made. 

Well, there it is.  There's the reason.  Pete was curious.  It's as simple
as that, I guess.   

> it didn't promise, contrary to what the police said to me when I was 
> interviewed, to lead to child pornography. 

Hmmmm.....

> I can't remember my state of mind but, looking back, it was stupid and 
> it was wrong. I think I made a terrible mistake.'

Bravo, Pete!  Bravo for admitting that!

> 'The whole thing has changed my standing in society substantially.' 

Yalp.

> He is 'nervous but confident' about going back out on the road with the 
> Who, 

Hey!  That's good news!

> 'ultimately all I really want to be able to do is wander the streets 
> on my own and end up somewhere unfamiliar, and still feel confident.'

Poor Pete.  Sounds like he's headed in the right direction, though.  Sounds
like he's been humbled.

> What, I ask him, has he learned from all this? 'That this world is all 
> about limits and boundaries,' he says, 'and this year I found the end-
> stop. 

You know, he's really come a long way.  He's taken this horrible event
& learned from it.  He's grown as a person.  This makes me happy.

> I just thought, I have to look at who I am, and what I did, and get 
> through this calmly. 

Bravo!  That takes strength & courage.  Good for Pete!

> Soon after, I realised that the public hadn't bought into it,

Er,....some people have, Pete.  Some have.  Don't jump into a cocoon.

> 'The fact is I've survived. I've learned a huge amount because I've been 
> tested and, more importantly, I've been trusted. I don't know if it's 
> even appropriate to say this but in some ways I've had the most incred-
> ible year.'

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I think Pete has a good grasp
on things & is well beyond any trouble spots in this horrible ordeal.  I
just wish he'd abandon the "spirituality" & "12 Step" crutches.  He can
walk on his own.  

It sounds like he's no longer blaming others.  It sounds like he's com-
pletely accepted his responsibility in the matter.  It sounds like he's
taken the tragedy & learned from it.  And it sounds like he's reached safe
waters mentally.

I can't wait to again give him my support.....and my money!  I'll be
toasting to his welfare on New Year's Eve, I can tell you that.  My faith
in him is fully restored.

LONG LIVE PETE TOWNSHEND!!


- SCHRADE in Akron

The Council For Secular Humanism
http://www.secularhumanism.org/