Word: petee
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...case Pete's sentiments and strangely convoluted prose forays don't convince people that he knows a lot about Life's Important Questions, Townshend peppers his stories with a bibliography of the Very Impressive Writers he knows about. He refers to Proust and Joyce. He lists Conrad, Burgess, Bashevis Singer and Balzac as writers he's keen on, as well as P.G. Wodehouse and H.E. Bates: "I read fairly heavy stuff. To mention all the authors might make me sound pretentious...
...book does contain some incisive clues about why Pete adopts his pseudo-profound attitude. His bouts with booze and drugs--briefly noted in these stories--have simultaneously weakened him and awakened him to all that he couldn't notice while his senses were dulled...
...revealing chapter, "A Death in the Day of," he writes as himself and also assumes the persona of a reporter assigned to a story about him. Pete uses this format to extemporize about his daily life, and says, "In spurts I answer fan mail and business letters, play snooker, strum my guitar into a cassette machine, pray for forgiveness and think about what a total mess I've made of a life that had everything, and everyone, going...
...fans get the feeling that, after all his own warnings, Pete let them...
...plaintive self-indulgence of "Horse's Neck" is reminiscent in tone of some of Townshend's solo musical efforts. When writing and performing with The Who, Pete comes across as a team-player, a rough-and-tumble rock star who would ringlead the type of debauchery described in "Long Live Rock," in which "someone takes his pants off and the rafters knock" and a "fifty-inch cymbal falls and cuts the lamps...