Dear Pete: Who are you?

[Photo: AP]

Pete Townshend leaves his home in Richmond, an exclusive London suburb, in a police car Monday.

No one plugged into the angst of teenage alienation better than Pete Townshend.

From My Generation, the ageless anthem about age, to the lost boy's world of Quadrophenia, the Who's kingpin scratched the scab of itchy rebellion. Millions lip-synched as he, and frontman Roger Daltrey, sang what young people already knew about their g-g-g-g-eneration. Oldsters could never "dig what we all say" and it was better to be dead than get old and boring, which were mutually inclusive.

At 57, Townshend is old, ancient history to most 19-year-olds, the age at which he wrote My Generation. But his words remain true, and that's his genius. Now, audiences at Who shows are mostly people as faded as their old concert T-shirts, chiming "teenage wasteland" on cue. I always wear a Keith Moon pin in tribute to the flamboyant drummer who died in 1978 at age 31.

Townshend was -- still is -- a Renaissance rocker who took a position as a literary editor at the esteemed British publishing house Faber & Faber when the road waned. He fused rock and opera, most notably in Tommy. He conquered Broadway. He wrote books. His signature windmill guitar move has been copied by every kid who's strapped on a Stratocaster.

This week his photo was splashed across newspapers and TV worldwide. The famous blue eyes cast downward, he sat rumpled in the back seat of a police car. Scotland Yard snared him in a sting of suspected pedophiles.

Oh my guitar god, say it isn't so.

Townshend's name popped up on a list of more than 7,000 people, mostly men, who had downloaded pornographic images of children on the Internet. He said he was looking at the photographs as part of research for a book about his own sexual abuse as a child but denied downloading images. He claims his maternal grandmother abused him when he was about 7. Townshend's mother says that's news to her.

No charges have been filed, and Townshend is cooperating with authorities, news reports say.

[Times photo (2000): Thomas M. Goethe]

Fans may wonder, another layer in the depths of Pete Townshend, or just another pedophile? Townshend’s name was on a list of people who had viewed pornographic images of children on the Internet.

For a Who fan, and specifically a Townshend devotee like me, it's difficult to know how to react. The case is murky, but the smarmy nature of Internet child porn begs serious thought. Could a man who knows so well the torment and turmoil of youth contribute to it? Does artistic muse give license to explore all sides of life, even those that disgust, repel and have the power to change us forever?

Is this another footnote in the turbulent history of the Who? Or the unraveling of a man I don't recognize but never really knew?

The Who was diminished mightily when rock 'n' roll excess killed Moon. I harshly judged the fill-ins for my favorite wild child and finally came to accept Zak Starkey, Ringo's kid, as the permanent drummer. But the Who was never the same dangerous band that threatened to blow apart on stage. The excitement was gone, even if Townshend was still smashing his guitar.

In 1979, 11 fans were killed at a Cincinnati concert, crushed by the crowd rushing into Riverfront Coliseum.

There were farewell tours and reunion tours, solo shows and some really embarrassing performances, in the years after the group's official 1983 breakup. I remember a 1989 concert at the Oakland (Calif.) Coliseum, during which there were female backup singers banging tambourines on their backsides. The Who seemed one step from a Las Vegas lounge. The band regrouped, and several tours later, got a decent middle-age groove going. In fact, Townshend had recently announced a tour for later this year.

Last summer, bass player John Entwistle died in a Las Vegas hotel room. Heart attack was the cause, cocaine the reason. Entwistle was the Who's anchor. While Moon flailed, Townshend soared and Daltrey swung the microphone like a lariat, Entwistle stood stone still except for his flying fingers.

Another rock 'n' roll death. Three days later, the tour resumed.

Entwistle was famously known for a voluminous collection of pornography of the adult variety. He wrote some of the Who's darker songs, My Wife and Boris the Spider.

The Who was never a tidy group of guys singing about everlasting love.

Forbidden carnal thoughts -- and sometimes actions -- is a theme of many Who songs, which isn't particularly alarming in context. Teenagers think about such things. Pictures of Lily is a masturbatory ode to titillating photos on the bedroom wall of a lonely boy. Uncle Ernie abused Tommy in the groundbreaking rock opera and sang about it on Fiddle About. In 5:15, "girls of 15, sexually knowing" are of great interest to lurking adults. Teenagers see themselves in Townshend's words.

Despite all his accomplishments, Townshend seems, in many ways, to be the same self-conscious teenager who made the band. In a 1994 Playboy interview, he described how perturbed he was when the most beautiful girl in the audience was looking at golden-haired Daltrey.

"When I saw that, I began to fight for her attention. By the end of the show I wanted her to be looking at me," he says.

Well, we're looking at you now, Pete. Is it true?

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