PETE TOWNSHEND STOPS HURTING PEOPLE

"Personally I like the idea of embodying evil in the devil—it doesn't really matter whether you externalize the evil or recognize it as within. With regards to that, I found that experience I had in California at the beginning of this year very interesting."

It was on the last day of his month-long stay at the drug rehabilitation clinic outside Los Angeles that Pete Townshend took a walk along the nearby beach. Down by the edge of the Pacific, his attention for some reason or other focused on a large bottle that obviously had been washed up from the sea. Even as he walked towards it Townshend intuitively knew what was in it. He picked it up, unscrewed the stopper, and with a forefinger put to the end of his tongue some of the powder it contained. His hunch had been correct: it was cocaine. Much to the chagrin of his walking partner, the Who guitarist tossed the bottle back into the sea, watching it smash on some half-submerged rocks.