Counting the beat...
The Sunday Star Times has an interview with form Split Enz member Phil Judd, talking candidly about his recent troubles....
"I've had a year of disaster," he said during an exclusive, in-depth interview with the Star-Times, his first since news of his conviction broke last year. "You know how many famous people... come unstuck in the end. It seems it was my turn to come unstuck."He's through with Facebook, he says. "The internet has cost me a lot of money, and a lot of humiliation, and ruined my life. I'm done."
Radio jocks dined out, announcing his conviction to the strains of the Enz track "My Mistake". A sign went up in his neighbourhood: "The only record for Phil Judd in 2010 is a criminal one". Anonymous callers threatened to burn down his house, kill him in the street. "It freaked me out, and it freaked my ex-wife out even more." One night, he says, she arrived unannounced and bundled their 10-year-old son, over whom they shared custody, into her car. Her new partner, 20 years Judd's junior, wrestled to keep him at bay. "I was yelling, 'Please don't take him, please don't take him. Can we just talk about this?"' he says. "I slipped over on the driveway and just lay there."...
... Judd's chronic heart disease was discovered after a stroke in 2004 wiped out his spleen. "I lived pretty hard and I've paid the price," he says. Although he was a reluctant performer in his Split Enz days, he says he'd like to be able to take the stage again, but would be unlikely to make it through a song without collapsing. His bipolar syndrome is just as debilitating, and is only exacerbated by his drinking problem.
"Some of us have got through life self-medicating," he says. "I didn't even know I was bipolar until 18 years ago. Maybe, if I live a bit longer, I'll get more involved in support for bipolar people, because we're a very misunderstood bunch. People think you're a bit wacky, but you can't help the way you are. It's just the way the chemicals in the old noggin are working."
Read it here. It's tough going.
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