You know what, people like David Bowie have a way of becoming an integral part of our own personal history, so losing them kind of feels like that chapter of history is closed forever. Especially if you're a 70s or 80s kid, or if your parents were and indoctrinated you with Ziggy Stardust and the Goblin King (as they should've or they were failures as parents) -- it's hitting us even harder than losing Robin Williams or Jim Henson, you know? Those guys were a) more localized than Bowie and b) actors/filmmakers, whereas David Bowie created a kind of art that nestled in your soul. Maybe even a place deeper than your soul, somewhere in your gut, because he was so instrumental in helping us understand the differences in each other and embrace them through music.
To put it bluntly, he in particular (for me, at least) was key in breaking down the social stigmas about homosexuality that I was raised with. He was one of the only Warholians to keep up his energy and gain enough inertia to make it past the glam rock years yet still manage to exhibit that kind of flamboyant behavior. I was really scared of him at first. The first time I saw or heard him was the video for "Let's Dance" and it made me really uncomfortable, but what frightened me was how very fascinating he was. "Why is he smearing his lipstick? What does it mean? Why is he wearing lipstick in the first place? That's not normal, therefore that's not okay! This is wrong on so many levels, this lipstick thing! Is he.. Is he... Am I watching a "gay" dude? And he's so ugly, those teeth are hideous, and yet... that flag is so beautiful." Looking back I can pinpoint that moment, in my second cousin's Indiana living room in 1983, as the moment my childhood preconceptions were hit with a tiny, stray pebble of doubt, and began to crack.
Bowie was good at that, though, wasn't he? He was just as careless and brutal with those pebbles as a dump truck (full of gravel) in front of you on a 65mph 4-lane, with a sign that warns you to stay back 100 feet and that it's not responsible for debris coming from "the road." In other words, you know good and well it's a dump truck full of gravel and that if you drive too close for too long, chances are super high that something's going to come flying out and turn your windshield into an exquisite work of art.
The sexiest dump truck in the universe.
I worried at that crack for the next year or so, until I encountered Duran Duran for the first time, and holy crap that one guy isn't just wearing lipstick, he looks like he just walked out of Glamour Shots, but that other guy, oh my god, it's all over. Simon le Bon was my *poison.* I plastered every possible image I could manage to beg, steal, or borrow over every square inch of my living space. I spent any money I had on D2 paraphernalia, and growing up in poverty like we did, magazines (Star Hits, lol) were the most affordable (and reliable, we didn't always have electricity and MTV was a rare luxury) way to get my fix.
So magazines I got, and studied, and mutilated. Being so enmeshed with the 80s "beautiful & heterosexual = talented" culture, I regrettably eschewed a fair few bands that I was destined to adore in about 3yrs time (The Cure comes to mind), but that David Bowie crack spread more and more as he emerged so much to the forefront of alternative 80s music, the only alt music the radio stations would play, the only one you could get in the 12 cassettes for a penny from Columbia House. His voice was so mesmerizing that he was just about the only other thing I would drop everything and fly to my cassette deck to unpause "record" for.
"China Girl" especially gave me feelings I couldn't sort out. Looking back I can identify them as being extremely attracted to him, that there was some kind of playful and cruel strength in him that I craved. He wasn't afraid of anything. He wasn't embarrassed or ashamed of anything, not even those terrifying teeth. Not only did he delight in who he was, his easygoing confidence in not giving a shit of any kind was such that I was drawn in by it without realizing it, guided by it, even.
Before I knew it, I was looking beyond the makeup on Nick Rhodes and seeing his face. It wasn't long until I wasn't seeing the makeup at all. I mean, my god, Poison was around by then with softcore pron vids and they were apparently very straight, regardless of how sparkly and flammable they were.
Seems legit. 100%.
And, Bowie had a unique masculinity about him. For a while I was convinced that suits were created only for men like him to be poured into (and maybe that Spandau Ballet guy to some extent). Bowie redefined masculine grace. It wasn't until John Malkovich played the Viscount de Valmont that I realized: the grace that Bowie exhibited was that kind of grace, an elegance untouchable by time. When I fell in love with him (which happened to be when a fragile glass sphere danced across his fingers in Sarah's bedroom; I'm pretty sure now that I was hypnotized into believing he was the hottest human that would ever walk this earth) I realized: he's not timeless, so much as outside of time. He's in a place of artistic nirvana that can only be achieved by releasing anything, everything, all things that bind you to preconceived notions, to overcome self-consciousness with self-awareness.
Essentially, if you're a guy and your situation just so happens to call for periwinkle tights and a short but dazzling jacket and an open poet shirt that shows a discomforting lack of chest hair in the Tom Selleck era, so be it. If you are asked to be the physical embodiment of an underage girl's image of the kind of virility that her budding desires don't even yet realize that's precisely the direction they're headed, so be it. If the situation requires you to speak her name in such a way, in such a voice and quiet, subtle tone that ensnares her and convinces her that being ensnared by you is her deepest unspoken need, so be it. If you have to aggressively exhibit this kind of angelic, almost androgynous sexuality in said underage girl's parent's bedroom while her parents are totally not there, while hypnotizing her with a glass ball, *after,* mind you, you've committed a major kidnapping/breaking & entering felony in her world of origin, SO BE IT.
This dude gets it.
And if all of this is to be achieved with moves so smooth that not even penguins in spiked mountaineer boots could stand on it, there is only one man in the universe who could pull such a thing off, and do it so successfully that grown men will still be getting tattoos of your face as a quick & easy seduction tool: David Bowie.
Bitch, please.
David Bowie is why I gave Queen a chance and learned that all is still well with the world if I enjoy gay men singing about falling in love, and about the tortures of being gay in the 70s, and from there gained a ton of respect for guys like Freddie Mercury (who made Bowie look like Adonis in comparison), who were literally some of the bravest pioneer artists of their time. Then I became addicted to respecting visionaries and sought out more so I wouldn't have to stop respecting artists, and through that gained the courage to be an artist myself, first in fine art then adding graphic design and eventually becoming who I am today, and evolving all the time, because without ever knowing the faintest breath of my existence David Bowie taught me that everything is a canvas. Nothing is safe from art. Nothing should be protected from art. Art is what it is, because you are who you are, and once you start on that incredible path of divergence from everything you think should be normal, you will eventually be running as fast as you can away from any and all things considered normal, because it's a very ancient lie to believe that the only way to make it in this world is to be like everybody else. It's a crippling, self-defeating lie to believe that you have to do anything you can to make sure people like you, to be careful what you say or how you dress because it's awful to be rejected and labeled by the world as a freak.
David Bowie was probably one of the most successful men to ever live, because he achieved exactly what he set out to do, and that was to shower the world with enough stardust that some of us got the message, that we're stardust too.
So I think that's why we can actually feel his absence in a way that is so personal. It's because we were connected to him. Although I have some theories, I'm not sure what happens when we die, but I really really hope that he's in a place or has an awareness that affords him the ability to stand back and marvel in awe at the impact he had on the entire planet. And I hope he knows now how much each one of us, his stardusters, cherished and admired him. He had a lot more to give, too, from his overflowing creativity, but then again so did so many others that were given a lot less of a chance to make their mark. He's now taken his place in that special group of people outside of time, that when we read their words or look at them in some way or hear their music, they're with us.
...far above the moon...
Thank you for putting into words what I couldn't.
ReplyDelete*passes you a kleenex*
Delete