TONY PARSONS: How Iggy Pop asked me for drugs! (PHOTO)

When someone like the celebrated British writer Tony Parsons starts his career as a rock critic and chronicler of the punk and a new wave "sharing" soft drugs with Iggy Pop, speed lines with sexy Debbie Harry (alias Blondie) and hanging out with the most notorious rock lovers - Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols) and Nancy Spungen, then the real question that you can ask him is- Are there any new challenges for him?

It is with this dilemma that we rushed to the bookstore "Delfi", on the promotion of Parsons' first thriller "One by One".

With a cute Cockney accent, in the outfit which certainly shows that after a few decades he has no shortage of "punk spirit", in the mood for a joke, Tony explains that he is glad that after five years he is in Belgrade again, and the reason why he has not changed at all is that he has "done a couple of plastic surgeries."

To the general thanking of the present journalists for his support to Serbia during floods, the writer casually replies, "that he was glad that at least through social networks he was able to help, but he would like he could have done more."

Foto: Marko Todorović

- In my new novel, one character is pretty active on social networks, but in the wrong way. Social networks simply adore a serial killer who stalks the streets of London because he slaughters the rich and powerful ... If he was alive today, Jack the Ripper would surely tweeted - witty Brit remarks commenting on social networks.

He adds that it has signed a contract for two more sequels of the story of the hero of his new novel detective Max Wolfe from the Homicide in the London police station who will, "if the world allows, become the new Sherlock Holmes, James Bond or Philip Marlowe."

We cannot help but wonder how it came to be that the master of lad-lit genre (prim.aut. - The title was acquired after the success of the bestselling "Man and Boy" that he quarreled about with feminists) turned to writing thrillers?

Printskrin: YouTube/LetterboxView's channel

- I was at the screening organized by Sam Mendes. We were sitting, sipping wine, and at one moment he revealed to me that he was doing a movie about James Bond. I thought to myself: "Man, what a jump! From "American beauty" to "James Bond"! He explained to me that his idea was to present Bond as he experienced him reading Fleming when he was 12 years old. As soon as I got home, I started reading this book and upon closing the covers I had only one idea on my mind - to create the similar hero myself. I realized what an accomplishment is to get into literature with such a figure. I had to show to the world that I am capable of something like that - says Parsons, adding that after two years of thinking he invested all of his life savings and future pension and sat down to write without a contract.

"This is the real Tony", it came to our mind, "the man led by ideas" ... Whoever is familiar with the sketch of his exciting life knows what we're talking about.

Tony was born in London's East End above the grocer’s, where his father was selling fruit and vegetables. As the son of a former marine who was awarded Medal for outstanding service during the Second World War, Tony says that it was quite natural that for his fourth birthday he got a punching bag and boxing gloves from his father. At that time, he heard an unwritten family rule for the first time: "Do not ever hit a woman and do not let be hit by a man."

- In fact, the rule was: "Do not ever hit a woman, and when a man hits you, hit him back twice" - corrects us Parsons.

Foto: Marko Todorović

At the age of 16 he left school. His son, we learn, did the same a little bit later.

- I was a kid, and I got out of school immediately when they left the gate open – tells Parsons with a smile.

- I thought I would gain more life experience by working in a gin factory in Islington from eight o'clock in the evening until eight o'clock in the morning, than at the University. In the end it turned out that I might have learned more at school than in the factory considering what the working hours were and how much I had to work.

His life changed from the roots after writing the first novel "The Kids", thanks to which he got a job in one of the most popular British music magazine NME.

According to his own testimony, he was a kid of 22 years who knew all that was needed about the punk movement, and the ace up his sleeve was that, unlike other candidates who have sent the criticism of the last concert of Pink Floyd, he sent - his novel.

For "only six guilders" a week he moved to a famous place of debauchery, Roseberry Gardens, where punkers and bohemians gathered. His house was always full of uninvited guests, and from time to time Blondie, Sid Vicious or Iggy Pop used to "ring" him, and Iggy Pop, according to Parsons’ words, was usually inquiring whether there were some drugs for him.

- They were all my age ... At the time I hung out with Sid Vicious; he was a hard heroin addict, barely able to lift his head. He was like an old granny, and only twenty years old. I remember that, when someone offered him drugs, he would barely answer, completely doped: "I don’t want it, I don’t feel good."

Asked whether Debbie Harry (Blondie) is still the sexiest rocker to him, as he once said, Parsons responds with a laugh:

- Not anymore! The girls are changing, but you never mess with them!

One of the first interviews in his career he was with Blondie, who he, instead of a cup of coffee and a glass of water offered, no less than - the speed line, which she accepted with enthusiasm. It was a way, according to Parsons’ words, to break the ice between music stars and journalists.

- By the fact that I offered her speed on the first meeting, Debbie realized that I was on her side, that we belong to the same idea and movement. She was really sexy ... Oh, a beautiful women, and very charming. I remember when I was on tour with a band that she came to me and in her sexy voice said: "Hey, Tony, what's up?" The boys, who were in my company, were paralyzed.

Foto: Marko Todorović

Unlike knowing the attractive rock heroine, hanging out with the guys from the band The Clash and Sex Pistols seemed quite different. At that time they were just a bunch of angry kids that record companies didn’t want to sign a contract with.

- I remember the time when the guys from the band The Clash and I were not able to get into one of the London clubs, because we were not cool enough - says Parsons.

- For the security at the entrance we were just weird kids in jackets from second hand shops, and free entrance was reserved for boys with hairstyles a-la Rod Stewart in tight leather pants. It was the time when the whole story about the punk movement was still not popular, and when I went every afternoon with Mick Jones, the guitarist of the band The Clash, to his grandmother, for warm cookies and a cup of tea.

About why he has not fallen into the clutches of heroin he says:

- Since it was assumed that I was allergic to penicillin, the parents took me to various tests. When I was once taken blood, the needle broke and a part remained in my hand. Since then I have needle phobia. I think that just because of this incident I never took heroin.

After interviews with Iggy, Pistols, Blondie and his band The Clash, Tony soon became the best journalist of the magazine NME and gained cult status among English teens. But then perhaps the most difficult period in his life started. Less than four years after he had a son, his wife left him (author’s note - who presented all the dirty laundry of their marriage in the book "I knew I was right").

Printskrin: Twitter/@TonyParsonsUK

In order to raise his son, according to his own testimony, he spent 80s’ accepting every possible journalistic work. He wrote columns about love, sex and family issues in typical women's magazines, such as magazine Elle. After the publication of the controversial biography "Bare", of his friend, a pop singer George Michael, that he almost got into an argument about with him, Tony became one of the most popular TV commentator in the cult TV show Late Review on the BBC.

The new millennium has been marked by Parsons’ novels about the problems that men in their late thirties face in love, sex and at work: "Man and Boy", "Man and Wife", "The Family Way", "One for My Baby".

Foto: Promo / David Levenson

- In almost all these books I quoted the dialogues that I had the opportunity to hear in my life. You know how Hemingway used to say: "The best cure for writer's block is writing the truth. Write a true sentence, and you are on the right path "- explains Parsons closing the interview talking about his favorite girl, 11-year-old daughter Jasmin, he got when he married his second wife, Japanese Yuriko.

- She is an unsolvable mystery to me. The older I get the more I realize how little I understand women! - he finished the story with us smiling, mentioning, by the way, that he was glad we still see a rebellious spirit in him and that he will do his best not to lose it despite years!

(Katarina Vuković)