Excision

Chris Skelt
Little, Brown and Co.
1345 Avenue of the Americas
NYC, NY 10019

Hey Chris,

So here's the section I was talking about last Friday. just to remind you, Keef wants it out, and I want it in. His argument is not without merit: he can't prove any of it, and all the principles are dead (except for his, uh, twin? Double? I'm not sure the correct term). Anyway it's nothing that would effect deadline, and it's not like the shit is boring without it. It’s just that the story is so weird and unlikely, a freakish, surreal example of what 1st world culture can become in synchronous moments. That's just me waxing romantic though. Call me a romantic ;)


Anway, check it out and let me know. Either way, you'll have the pages - all 547 of them (!) - on your computer on by Friday.
OK,
G

The end of the 1960s was, like, almost baby, almost. That year, and even in '67 and '68, there were things going on in this country that were very positive, very hopeful. The world had really - it seemed - had enough of the system. Enough of wars. Enough of other people making decisions for them. Which is not, i might add, an uncommon sentiment down through the ages, but usually unsuccessful right?. It's easy to complain about things, but very difficult to put a plan into action, or even to make a plan at all. At the end of the 1960's in America, it seemed like everybody had a plan. You can see nothing much came of it, but like I say: almost.

For me, that was when it was the most fun. The Stones were quite a different band in those days. Brian was still, supposedly, in charge. I mean, nobody was really in charge, but the main character was clearly Brian. He'd been beautiful, and was no longer but nobody really caught on until after he was gone. Mick and I were still sort of mucking about, not writing, and if we did, not writing as a team. None of that started until later. The songs, the ones we didn't steal I mean, were a more collaborative thing then. I'm not sure if that was a good thing as far as the product goes, but it seemed to leave us all having a much better time.

Put it this way, I spent the 1970's basically living from court date to court date and trying to staty out of jail and feed my habit. Compare that to the 60's. In the 1960's I fucked a different woman after every set, smoking weed by the bushel and, really, just being adored by everybody. Which sounds better to you: Paranoid and on the lamb vs stoned for free and banging everything in range?

***

This guy, I remember his name because he only had one name. George. It was John himself who made introductions. That's what really got me. Of all of us, Lennon was so protective of his privacy, and so weary of being taken. That whole Liverpool, working class thing of keeping it all under wraps you know? That was very much John, even right up until the end. But here he was, telling me he wanted me to meet this man, this Doctor. "Doctor George" he called him: "A miracle worker old man, I'm gonna’ bring him 'round this weekend."

And he did. And we - the three of us, John and me, and this Doctor - sat around yakking for most of the night. He loved acid, did the good doctor, and so did John, and I was thinking that this was a drug-maker. I just assumed that's what we were leading up to. I was wrong.

The real heart of it was that this Doctor - and he was very young also, or at least very young looking - had invented a machine called a Quantum Computer. Now: "What's that Keef?". "Well I've no idea sweetheart, but it sounds expensive. How much do you need?" you know? Feeling around my pockets...

But the didn't want money. This guy wanted ME. He wanted Keith Richard’s body, right? The computer, he claimed, was ahead of it's time by hundreds of years, and could conceivably perform tasks long thought to be impossible. Time travel - for instance - was mentioned. Teleportation, mind-reading, and (this was the main reason he'd come to me) cloning.

Lennon and Doctor George explained to me that the quantum computer was some accident of his research. He hadn't been looking for it, and didn't know quite what to do with it now that he'd found it. John heard from him and immediately thought (and this can sort of illustrate where John's mind was at the time) "I'll make a copy of me to do all the things I hate doing, mainly: Being John Lennon“. Photo shoots, press junkets, tours...All of it he'd put in the hands of this double that our mad doctor could make. A fake Lennon. They were about to do it, and then John thought of me. We hated most of the same things, he and I, and he realized that I might be able to make use of this new technology as well.

Well it took a bit of time and some trial and error but we ended up getting the thing sorted. A few months later, just in time for Altamont actually, I met...Me. And from there things got a little crazy for a while…Crazier than usual, even for the Rolling Stones.