Jul 2, 2019
The legendary punk rock poet John Cooper Clarke returns to TRR Smart Camp!
One of the highlights of my trip to the UK was getting to
spend the day with JCC at his house and record this conversation at
the very table where he writes and is currently writing his
memoirs. We discuss the difficulty of writing the story of your
life when your life continues to move forward. If anyone has a life
story worth retelling it is this man who has tasted the whip of
unemployment, been a friend to the China man's night cap, pissed
pure gold, operated in the world of degenerate gamblers, the
fickleness of fame and the feeling of being an iconic live
performer.
He's under pressure to finish his memoir before his deadline
but he tells me that the defining turning point in his life was
when he could start picking out his own clothes and have the style
of his own choosing. We talk about the teacher who introduced
the love of poetry into John's life, the 19th century romantic
poets, how Poe knew how to drive people mad and how Baudelaire
changed his life.
In this lively chat JCC tells me the ten songs he would take
with him on a desert island and the one book he would like to read
forever other than the exciting fucking and fighting books of
Shakespeare and the bible.
We talk about his none poet heroes Elvis and Napoleon, wages
and holidays and how the vanity of small differences is the
psychological blip that keeps the whole world from collectively
getting their shit together.
It is an honor to call this man a friend as he is who I want
to be when I grow up and that is why it is my pleasure to present
to you now the one and only John Cooper Clarke!