unSwell

Take note.

"Weeks later—weeks during which I nearly die, become hideously deformed and then spend entire days crying like a baby—the wife and I are in the elevator in our apartment building when she opens the bill from our bat-shit crazy American insurance company.

"How much?" I giggle.

"$51,000," she snorts.

It might as well be 51 gazillion billion bazillion trillion. We both start laughing like hyenas on helium."

Every NME reader of a certain age remembers Steven Wells, or Swells as he was known then. Ranting, impassioned, hyperbolic, one of the best music journalists of his generation. Little did we know back then, him or me, that one day the NME would be a bland, uniform sack of shit punctuated by dazzlingly vapid and conservative writing, as it is now, and nor did we know that stuff like this happened. Well, maybe he did. I didn't.

Swells has been Unwell. Really really unwell. But he learned plenty along the way:

"No one ever "battles bravely against cancer." This is utter bullshit. You do your chemo, take your drugs and hang on for dear life.

Having a serious illness doesn't make you wise or nice or even remotely interesting. Trust me.

Humans are great. Except New Age types who suck, know fuck all and talk absolute bollocks—especially about cancer.

Oncologists are living gods.

My wife is the greatest human being who's ever lived."

A bloody brilliant article, and good to know he hasn't changed a bit.