Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored

by Lydon, John

  Other times when things get too much, we just go out in our boat till you can’t see land, and then play with the GPS and hopefully find a safe harbour. The engines’ll stop, and we’ll look at each other – who put the gasoline in last?

  You’ve got to bear in mind that in amongst all of this happiness, there’s family members dying on us – not only mine, but Nora’s – and having to deal with all the pain of that.

  Nora’s father ran a newspaper in Germany after the war called Der Tagesspiegel. There’s a difficult thing for many people who’re born into a wealthy scenario, family-wise to get their head around: it doesn’t necessarily mean any of that cash is coming your way any time soon, if ever. In fact, usually, the wealthier the parent, particularly the father, the more dictatorial and mean they’ll be. If you don’t toe the line, then life ruination be upon you. It’s a serious oppression you have to escape from, and so that’s what Nora did. Utterly amazing to just kiss all that goodbye and say, ‘Fuck it, I’ll get my own life.’ And she did, and eventually came to England.

  Her father put Nora and the rest of the family – her mother and sister – through hell. He was a very argumentative, abrasive führerbunker of a fella. To my mind, he was someone that really didn’t learn the lessons of World War Two, because he thought he could run a newspaper in the same way as that lot ran the country prior to 1945. His crowd were the big money people of Germany. He was quite politically tied in to people who in my opinion would be called corrupt.

  Her father hated me. He’d read the tabloid rubbish, and being a press man himself he should’ve known better than to believe it. We had no contact, never spoke to him, never made any attempt and just left it that way. If anything, that whole situation would’ve caused a problem or a rift between me and Nora, but our bond was so tight by that point, that all of these things were just silly acts of indifference to us.

  Rumour has it that Nora inherited unimaginable money. Not true, it’s barely imaginable. She is routinely described in the media as ‘an heiress’, which absolutely has her in fits. She just finds this hilarious. We’ve got a standing joke that they’ve spelled the word wrong – it’s ‘hair-ess’. H-A-I-R. Because she spends so long combing it.

  However, but for Nora not being able to pack a suitcase in time, we could have been on Pan Am Flight 103 that got blown out of the sky at Lockerbie on 21 December 1988. An hour before we were supposed to leave for the airport, we were nowhere near finished packing, so we cancelled it and booked it for the next day and just went back to bed, because we’d been up all night trying to sort out suitcases. We decided that day not to answer the bloody phone either – just too tired from being up all night worrying about packing. By the time we did get round to answering the phone and checked out the message machine, it was just full of – oh my God! – family and friends presuming we were on that flight.

  What a shock that was, knowing that we were minutes away from a wrong decision. We’d have been blown to smithereens, and for what? What point or purpose is the destruction of another human being? My view of terrorism is quite cold: if they’re going to go to that extreme, don’t be locking them up, give them the death they so wished upon others. And don’t take your time about it either, push them to the front of the queue. Such savagery and poison, it’s inexplicable.

  The first person I spoke to was my brother Martin from America, who was meant to be meeting us at the other end. He was like, ‘Oh my God, thank God!’ ‘What did you wake me up for?’ That’s when I went into the answer messages. So then I woke my dad up, I rang him back and he was extremely grateful, because that’s a terrible thing, and then all my brothers, and then all my friends. Quite literally, the next two days was spent ringing up and apologizing for not being blown to smithereens, and not telling anyone we’d changed flights. The lesson I got from it is, tell everyone what you’re doing all the time, and don’t jump on a plane or not jump on a plane without informing everyone of your movements, because it’s damn well irresponsible to do that, and the pain you can put people through. It’s best they know a thing accurately, rather than let the imagination run wild.

  When we found all this out, we were so nervous about it that we changed airlines. There was no way we were going Pan Am, not anywhere, not ever again. We’d flown Pan Am a lot in them days. Then of course all the rumours coming out in the press didn’t help: that Pan Am was secretly ferrying around American spies and the CIA and assassination squads for the American government. The whole thing was just, ‘Oh God!’ This is a world not of our making, but unfortunately it’s one that all of us have to live in. The spiteful, precious political views of a few. I’m very, very wary of extremist political or religious agendas; they are the world’s most stupid and dangerous people.

  Ultimately, you’re at the mercy of life’s luck, and sooner or later your luck runs out, whether that be a killer disease or a car-crash victim situation, or whatever. Or maybe you just run out of steam and croak it. But in the meantime enjoy it to the full. All the problems Nora and I go through, they’re just problems – nothing can take the sun away.

  We’re the closest that I can imagine any two people ever being. It’s beyond words. It’s one of those situations that’s very difficult to describe. I’ve tried in songs, like on ‘Grave Ride’ from Psycho’s Path: I used the backdrop of that horrible Bosnian war to explain my bond, and how the situation of a war, a calamity, separating us would be so earth-shatteringly destroying to me. I don’t know if it’s quite the greatest thing ever written, but it’s a song that makes me cry, and I don’t like to attempt to do it live because I know it would really hurt.

  The idea of losing Nora is unbearable. And we’re coming of the age now that we have to consider death, because all my peers are dying around me left, right and centre! I look at all of them, and I think, none of them have done anything like what I’ve got up to, and they’re all kicking the bucket rather sharpish. I must have sustainability, and that has to be because of the positive influence of having Nora in my life. She is such a positive person.

  Our worry is, how we are going to manage to die together, because if one goes before the other, it’s going to be absolutely murder on the survivor. But the way we look at it, in terms of statistics, women have a greater longevity, so we should die at exactly the same time. That would be just perfect.

  13

  NATURE DISOVERS ME

  It was Rambo, my now full-time manager, who conned me into being a contestant on I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! They’d actually tried to get me onto this British TV reality show before, but I’d backed away and didn’t even want to consider it – in fact, I never even bothered to watch a single episode. Warning bells went off in my head – it’s just fading celebrities wanting to get on TV for any old reason, like game-show panellists.

  After numerous rejections I finally said, ‘Oh, all right!’ I had no idea what I’d committed to, other than family and friends wittering on about a bunch of C-listers being imprisoned in the Australian jungle. Rambo, the git, kept saying, ‘Nah, it’ll be good, John, it’s something different, it will make a change from touring.’ So I went into it wide-eyed, and dumb as a plank of wood.

  Of course, there was instant uproar: ‘What a sell-out, he just wants to be famous!’ ‘No! I’m already infamous! I’m doing this for me and my love of nature, you daft a’peths!’ But thank God for people like Johnny Rambo because, after a huge amount of arguments, he ultimately reminds you that you’ve got to challenge yourself.

  When me and Rambo arrived in Australia to do the show in January 2004, there’d been a fake story put out in the press that I’d caused a scene at the airport in LA and hadn’t boarded. All made up, absolute nonsense. Gold Coast airport was swamped with paparazzi and when we eventually made our way to the hotel, of course they’d given up the rooms that they’d reserved for us, so I wasn’t staying at the same hotel as the rest of the cast – the Versace, on the Gold Coast. Fine, anywhere will do. Plastic Roman and
Grecian statues really aren’t my taste. It took them all day and way into that evening to find Rambo and me a pair of rooms, so what was poor old Johnny to do? The bars were open.

  The next morning, there was a meeting, and the day after we went straight into it. That first meeting was ridiculous, because everybody was embarrassed to be in everybody else’s company, and at the same time we were being fitted for our jungle clothing. I can tell you: not one of us would admit our real waist size. It was all done out in the open! Very hard. There was a great deal of whispering with the wardrobe woman. You’d bark out, ‘Oh, I’m 34 waist,’ then whisper, ‘Really, I’m 38!’ And of course her being Australian, she’d yell, ‘Whassat? 38?’

  They told me I could only bring one luxury item into the camp, so I decided on a jar of Vaseline. I knew the ants could bite the living daylights out of you, if you let them, so the idea was to rub the legs of my bunk with Vaseline so they couldn’t crawl up to do so. I knew everyone would take it wrong, and raise an eyebrow, but it was such a good tip they passed it on to the other celebrities, and a couple of them followed suit.

  The whole thing immediately felt like a set-up. It stunk of agenda. They’d put me in with people like BBC TV’s former royal correspondent, Jennie Bond, and Lord Brocket – the living embodiment of the upper-class black sheep. I didn’t know at the time that this is the bloke that hid all them Ferraris in a lake. What a dastardly cad!

  I had no idea what to expect other than I’d feel like the odd one out, which is my normal state of affairs anyway. I got serious after-burns from their zip-slide on the way in. I thought, ‘Oh bollocks, is it too late to leave, because this looks like daft shit!’ It was just a collection of people all moaning about their sorry lot out there. The whining and the whingeing and the weeping and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth. ‘My God, you mugs, haven’t you ever roughed it? Look, the whole thing’s a calamity, a farce, but the money goes to charity. What the hell are you moaning about?’

  I didn’t not get on with anybody. It was a bunch of socially inept people that somehow managed to like each other until competition raised its ugly head. I liked the girl Kerry Katona very much, I loved her energy, but I’ve got nothing to say about the so-called ‘glamour model’, Jordan, one way or the other – just nothing. As I said at the time, ‘It doesn’t contribute.’ She wouldn’t lift a finger: ‘Uuuuugh, there’s no wat-aaaah.’ ‘Well, boil some!’ ‘The fire’s gone out . . .’ ‘Well, you’re next to it, sort it out!’ She can’t actually connect the dots. With her, there’s nothing there, so there’s nothing to bother about.

  I liked the guy she started seeing in there, Peter Andre, the pop singer. Although it seems a ridiculous persona he has there, I think it’s fairly genuine. He really is ridiculous! And happy – he brings no harm or hurt to people.

  Their music-making was a horrible sham. For me, the moment of absolute terror was around the campfire, when somehow or other somebody pulled out an acoustic guitar. Oh no, camp songs! That’s the very last thing on God’s earth I want, so I just walked off into the wilderness in the dark. I could still hear it from way off out: Jordan rehearsing her new hit single, with help from Andre. I thought, what a set-up that is. Their perception of what they think music is, and to think I was going to share in this moment with them – impossible! It all felt very contrived and unnatural. How indeed did a bloody acoustic guitar turn up? Cue Camera Two, introduce the prop!

  By that point it began to dawn on me that, although it’s nice and wild out here and all of that, and the animals are real – and the lizards and the insects, they’re all seriously real – the situation is not, and I was losing interest in it. It just seemed like foolish escapades.

  So how do I entertain myself in a situation like that, when there’s allegedly nothing to do? I go and get firewood, I go and get water, I keep the fire running, I boil the water, I keep the water trough full. For me, that’s great, it’s an activity. I view myself as indolent, and that’s actually the thing that makes me get up and do things. ‘Bad Johnny! This relaxation will kill you, get up and do something!’ I do have conversations with myself, and in a situation like that I found that I had the most thrilling ones.

  The actual camp itself was fairly dreary and overcast because it was surrounded by high trees, so you had no idea what time of day it was. That was, for me, very frustrating. I loved wandering away and just knowing that every beast around could bite and cause me a serious problem. I liked it – I didn’t think I’d be able to do that. Fantastic – the wildlife, the snakes, and knowing these are all killer things, but just letting them swish by. They’d look up at you and let you know, ‘Don’t fuck with me.’ And indeed I didn’t, and so had a great affinity there.

  Having the cameras on you all day and all night, on the other hand, was a very good lesson in how to let go of that false perception you have of yourself, and not feel the need to protect yourself, and just be yourself. You have no choice. We were on camera twenty-four hours a day – get used to it! What a great training camp it was.

  I learned not to be camera shy. It was so damn hot there, I said there was no way I could walk around wearing all that clothing. I wanted to jump in that bloody pond. I didn’t care what was in it – crocodiles, swamp rats, anything, I needed to cool down. I knew cameras were on me, and of course you’re thinking, ‘Oh, my God, they’re going to laugh at my waistline here, and my fried-egg breasts!’ You have to give that up and just be yourself. It’s a useful tool to learn: all those body-conscious perceptions are fake. Other people don’t view us that way, if we’re happy. What you gather from the face is how you judge another person. If you can spot weakness in the face then everything crumbles for that person. And it doesn’t matter what your body’s condition is. If you’re happy being yourself, that’s how you will be seen.

  You can get realism, or you can go to the gymnasium like Peter Andre. But where does that get him? Unnecessary muscles in all the wrong places. I’ve always seen the laughability of that side of how celebrities want to present themselves. I definitely do not want muscles attached to my person, because they will turn to fat. I’d rather my fat be seriously earned. I binge-drink, and I love it. I also love the hangover because it reminds me not to do that again for a couple of months. Look, I’m Johnny, I ain’t no weightlifting gorilla.

  Being comfortable in your own skin is the ultimate reward. I love that kind of person, and I love being in that kind of company, when people are the exact opposite of body-conscious, where all the gifts of being alive are all coming from the brain – that’s, for me, a fantastic human at work. Crafting body definition – that’s so ridiculous. Unless you’re an athlete by trade, what on earth do you want to do that for?

  I got lumbered with the seriously ridiculous challenge of trying to grab ostrich eggs out of an ostrich pen. It seems absurd, but that’s actually rather a dangerous thing to do. These birds are incredibly bird-brained, their head is so tiny, and those beautiful eyelashes on them. I’ve got to tell you too, their feathery backsides are just so comfortable, but then you’ve got them bloody turkey legs of theirs. Wow, what a creature! However, they kick, they’ll tear you apart, and their beaks are like serrated carving knives. My back was covered in bruises and cuts. The power of the ostrich.

  There were problems raised about that after. The camp doctor said it was a dangerous thing they did there with me, because it was feeding time. When you picked up the fake halves of ostrich eggs, underneath was the bird seed. They’re just thinking, ‘Why are you trying to steal our food?’

  I obviously hoped, and indeed believed, that I was going to be voted out. Up until that point, there was no idea of audience feedback – you had no idea how you were being perceived. When the viewers kept on voting me in, I called them ‘fucking cunts’ on live TV. This time, compared to Bill Grundy, there were very few complaints. I think the Great British public actually understood, those were words of, ‘Oh no! More of this – thanks!’

  I liked these
people a lot and could not accept the loss of any one of them, but secretly what was really driving me crazy in there was that the producers wouldn’t tell me that Nora had arrived safely in Australia. She flew in separately a few days after me – the twins were still in our care, and sometimes you can’t just ‘up bags and off’. Beforehand, the TV company had promised they’d let me know she arrived safely, but they wouldn’t even give me a hint.

  It began to really grate on my mind. I said, ‘Is everything all right?’ ‘We can’t respond to that.’ ‘Oh – now what’s that about?’ Just a word of comfort would’ve been pleasant because I was well aware everybody else was getting little treats on the side.

  Knowing about Nora’s welfare would’ve been a great treat to me. I kept going to a little hut you went to and talked into a screen. Sometimes they would respond through a speaker, sometimes not. I just kept asking, ‘Why won’t you tell me? You know we almost died at Lockerbie, it’s really important that you let me know she arrived safely!’ It went on for days and days.

  That’s why I decided to walk when I did. They were just trying to turn me into that horrific personality that they so wanted out of me. ‘Well, no, go fuck yourselves, bye bye. There’s nothing to win here.’ I never viewed it as a personal challenge to be the last one left. I was very sorry to see people go right from the start. I for one suggested that we did not accept anyone to be removed from the camp. I continuously kept this thing running that I wanted to beat the system. What could they do if we refused to leave? They couldn’t starve us – we were starving already. One for all and all for one . . . but that’s not the way celebrities work. Is life a party or a parting of our ways?

  So I told them, ‘I’m out . . . now!’ and down came an escort or two, and led me up to another camp at the top. Nora, of course, was fine. The following day they took me back to the camp to be interviewed. The presenters, Ant and Dec, were going, ‘Oooooh, why did you leave, Johnny? You should’ve stayed, you could’ve won it!’ They really are sweet-natured fellas.