Tuesday 3 February 2009

MTV: Pete Doherty in 24 Hours

I'm a bit behind on this one, but I only just read about it in Heat (yeah, yeah) and watched it on the MTV site. Why do I do it to myself?
I went into this show hating Pete Doherty passionately. I hated the way he treated his band, and I hated his mentality; blaming everyone but himself for being a screw-up. But worse, I hate the apologists around him, treating him like an incorrigible little scamp, not capable of making his own decisions, whereas the truth is, he's unreliable because he's a drug addict. The whole premise of the show 'will he turn up' is patronising; will he turn up, or will he be too busy stuffing heroin into his bloodstream (as it turned out, I think he combined the two)? Lovely. Very moral of you, MTV.
His 'friend' Anthony who wanted him to do the catwalk show (to advertise HIS label) clearly has his own agenda. I never did buy that libertine dream.
Oh dear; it was worse than I thought. Doherty looked like death, like Jarvis Cocker reimagined by Tim Burton then thrown in the dustbin for 75 years. His house made Edward Scissorhands' derelict castle look chi-chi, with intermittent electricity and drawing on the walls. I stopped drawing on the walls around about aged 3.
Aside from that, he's totally lost his marbles too, rambling on about ghosts throwing a party in his house, a deer's head being dumped in there, and a half-man half beast 'werewolf thing' sleeping in one of his cars.
Is he fit to look after all those cats? I sound like the Daily Mail myself, but he doesn't seem capable of looking after himself, contradicting himself and going off on wild tangents. He seemed vulnerable and MTV were exploiting him.
When he said he spent Christmas alone, and then was scrabbling through his rent demands and saying he sleeps in the chair, I just felt very sad for him.
The rest of the show had all the authenticity of Peaches Geldof's magazine programme, i.e. none. The 'tension' was non-existent. Will Carl and Pete perform together? Who gives a shit, they're both hopeless. Their problem was they believed their own hype.
It was a bit disturbing when Pete looked like he was having a fit in the back of the cab and everyone just laughed at him. The state of him when he did that gig was disgusting, he was caked in sweat and looked off his head. The fans are culpable as far as I'm concerned; it's just a freak show.
Oh he did duet with Carl. So that's alright then. The whole show was a weird mish-mash of fake, juxtaposed with the whole Pete bit which was so tawdry. It's fair enough having a laugh at Jodie Marsh; she knows what she's in for. Or Peaches; she's an easy target, and I'm sure she can take it. But Pete looks headed for death to me. And yeah, I used to hate him. But after this; I just feel sorry for him. He's a state. He makes Winehouse look like Barbados Barbie and he needs help.

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