Fans of the modern libertine, Pete Doherty are frankly quite amazed and astounded that their hero, Pete Doherty is still alive.
“Yah, it’s totally amazing! He’s probably done more heroin and Charlie than Keef, and been chucked in prison more times than I can remember, plus he lives a squalid lifestyle that would make a tramp envious,” one fan quipped at a memorial service to another year lived by Doherty.
To define Doherty as a rock star is probably too ambitious, he is more well described as a fucked up NME pop starlet, as his songs do not have an ounce of ballsy rock in them, but are more akin to the jarring jangly tuneless emanations of a cat mewling in pain after it has been partially run over by a car.
Doherty’s chosen abode has become the sleazy environs of some Bohemian Parisian district where he delights the French with his bad poetry and entertains the crowds by squirting his rancid blood across the walls of his wrecked rented bijoux apartment whilst stabbing another overused vein.
Parisian fashion designers view the urine and vomit stained clothes of Doherty as an inspiration, an artistic jump into the days of Rimbaud and Baudelaire. Some even have gone to great lengths to recreate Doherty’s fashion sense.
Escaping from the constant harassment in Britain in the noughties, Doherty made a beeline to Paris where he thought he could escape the rozzers, and get more recognition. Sadly, his karma has caught up with him, and once again he’s getting arrested, this time by his French friends, the gendarmerie.
Could Doherty’s long life be down to a bit of fakery? Exuding an outward image of a piss artist yet secretly indulging in a macrobiotic diet and an extensive exercise program?
We will never know, mes amis, but until that time, here is to a long life for monsieur Doherty.
