It was John Cooper Clarke's birthday last Friday.
One night in SoHo I happened to see John Cooper Clark at an event launching The Clash's Box Set.
He happened to be going home with Johnny Green and JG happened to be parked in the same parking garage as me.
Close to him you realise just how very very thin he is. I almost considered throwing him over my
shoulder and making a run for it, taking him home and feeding him something substantial. When we stood by the ticket machine to pay for our parking I asked him exactly what would he want if I was to make him dinner. He told me he couldn't eat much these days and fish and chips was definitely off the menu. He can't do fried food.
So there you go. That's what he told me.
And cos Johnny Green is a big bloke, I had the feeling I wouldn't have got too far, so I just paid my ticket and drove home by myself.
Last year I was in New York and he had written this about people who remarked on his weight:
.In 1992, Sinead O'Connor ripped up a picture of the Pope on live television, in protest of the rampant child sexual abuse the Catholic Church was actively covering up. In the weeks that followed, Joe Pesci said he wanted to give her "such a smack", Frank Sinatra said he wanted to "kick her ass", and millionaire producer Jonathan King said she "needed a spanking".
She was 26.
Ten days later, she was scheduled to perform at Madison Square Gardens, as part of a celebration of Bob Dylan. As soon as she got to the microphone, the audience began loudly booing her, seemingly in unison. She talked later about how awful the sound was, and how she thought she was going to be sick.
The organizers tasked Kris Kristofferson with removing O'Connor from the stage. He instead went out and put his arm around her and checked in on her and stayed until she'd steadied herself and was ready to perform. Instead of singing the Bob Dylan song she was supposed to sing, she sang Bob Marley's 'War', changing some of the lyrics to be about child abuse.
As she came off stage, Kristofferson grabbed her in a bear hug and kissed her cheek. In the video -- posted below in the comments -- you can see that she pulls away at one point and either throws up, or nearly throws up. He just wraps her back in his arms and holds her tight.
About the incident, he says:
"Sinead had just recently on Saturday Night Live torn up a picture of the Pope, in a gesture that I thought was very misunderstood. And she came out and got booed. They told me to go get her off the stage and I said 'I'm not about to do that'. I went out and I said 'Don't let the bastards get you down'. She said 'I'm not down' and she sang. It was very courageous. It just seemed wrong to me, booing that little girl out there. But she's always had courage."
The recent Gillette ad has started/furthered a lot of conversations about what alternatives to toxic masculinity look like. This is it
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
This short film
brings Alan Vega to life for a short while.
He talks about how he became an artist.
Mick Jones and journalist/writer Kris Needs talk about the band.
LOVE Alan Vega.