He helped show what was possible. He embodied possibility. He was true to himself and part of that meant willingness to change. Not even willingness: he had to change, because he was alive. And human beings are not static. And performers must please themselves first. And as he changed, his persona broadened, and as his persona broadened, more and more people were drawn into it, more and more people could relate to it, were fascinated by it, felt the possibility in it. If he could be so flexible, then couldn’t we? Maybe? Maybe identity isn’t static. Maybe gender isn’t static. Maybe none of us are as trapped as we thought.
And so he moved forward, guided only by his own instincts, his own sense of what he wanted to express. He stood as an example of what it looked like to follow your own star. He was a true artist. I woke up to the news flooding Twitter and my first reaction was a sense of being lost, looking around me at an unfamiliar landscape, no street signs. “Wait … where am I now?”
A world without him? No. No.
I took to Youtube and started watching clips.
I came across this clip of David Bowie appearing on Cher’s television show, and the two of them do a lengthy medley together, standing on a little platform, dancing, and grooving on each other, taking turns.
Superstars.
In January of 2013, I went to the “2nd annual Elvis Presley/David Bowie Birthday Bash.” Elvis and Bowie were born on the same day, both were artists on the RCA label, and both the biggest artists on the RCA roster in their different eras.
The birthday bash took place at La Pouisson Rouge, a club on Bleecker Street. Doors opened at 10:30 p.m. I went by myself. (Seems like you could have found someone to go with you, Sheila? But it was January 2013. I had just come back my solitary trip to Memphis. I wasn’t really in a company kind of mood.)
It was one of the most unforgettable nights – certainly in my history of living in/near New York. It was a “scene” that I know exists but I haven’t really experienced – the downtown performance-art/burlesque/rockabilly scene – I haven’t experienced it because I go to bed at 10 p.m.
The roster was packed with New York artists: strippers and burlesque acts (male and female), a great rockabilly band who opened the show, and then performance artists, all of whom were inspired by either Elvis or Bowie. Everyone who showed up was dressed to the NINES. A lot of people in the audience were dressed up as either Elvis or Bowie, in the different phases of their careers. One guy was wearing a replica of Elvis’ head-to-toe gold suit. One guy was wearing a white jumpsuit and a cape. And the different Bowies were obvious: you could clock “which Bowie” someone was supposed to be. So you’d look over at the bar, and you’d see 25 Elvis-es and 25 Bowies crowding together trying to get the bartender’s attention.
I wasn’t the oldest person there, but it was a very young crowd on the whole (something that gave me hope). Every act who played performed an Elvis or a Bowie song. On the screen behind the stage, black-and-white footage played throughout the night: of Elvis’s Ed Sullivan/Dorsey Brothers TV appearances in 1956, or black-and-white footage of Bowie working in the studio in the 70s. That footage gave a ghostly effect: the faces of Elvis/Bowie LOOMING behind the various acts.
The party really didn’t get started until 1:00 in the morning, when the headliners (huge names in the downtown New York scene) started performing. I left at 2:30 a.m., because I live in Jersey and at that point it would take me two hours to get home.
It was an incredibly HIP evening, in terms of the crowd that was there. Like, these are cutting-edge people. There is still a cutting-edge, but you have to be willing to stay up until 2 a.m. to find it. However, my main takeaway from that night is that in reality, and, most importantly, in FEEL, the night wasn’t “hip” at all – and that’s what made it special. It was a night of TRIBUTE. People who weren’t even alive in the 1970s celebrating a man who had helped make their own life choices possible. Musicians who weren’t even born in the 1950s paying tribute to the musician who still inspired them. People who got on the Bowie train in the 1990s because that’s when they first started buying music, had, as all good obsessives do, gone back to the beginning, the genesis of the career, filling in for themselves what had happened before.
Here’s my Flickr album of that night. I think it gives a good sense of the vibe. Full immersion in two collective cultural obsessions.
No generation invents the wheel. We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
David Bowie was a giant.
It’s just untenable.
I know. The sense of loss is too huge.
His generosity and connection with other artists was one of the loveliest things about him, I think. I don’t even know where to begin – how do you describe Bowie, at all ever? Or the impact he’s had? People have been trying for decades already. There was no one like him. Impossible to measure. It’s been a privilege to live at the same time as this man, honestly.
I was watching the video for the strange and fabulous Blackstar just the other day and marveling at how connected he was still to whatever creative force there is out there. I loved this line from Ignatiy Vishnevetsky’s review of the album:
“Crooned and wailed over a backdrop of dark jazz, spy soundtrack, and synth pad, Blackstar finds David Bowie—now old enough to be grandpa to a big chunk of the music-streaming public—at the forefront of something.”
He always was. 69 years old and still showing the kids how it’s done.
Desirae –
// It’s been a privilege to live at the same time as this man, honestly. //
I know – and how many artists can you say that about??
I was too young for the 60s/70s stuff – I came in in the 1980s and he dominated then too. I went back to re-discover the stuff from before my time. Learning about what he had done back then helped me understand the changes he had wrought in the culture. Prince was the biggest thing going for us in high school – the superstar of our era, along with Madonna – and Bowie helped crate the androgynous space for both of them to operate. Game-changer.
I love Ignaty’s quote!!
Oh, and this is a cool little tribute:
http://kierongillen.tumblr.com/post/137082108847/immortality-of-a-kind
And this is one of my favorite performances of his; every time he returns to the chorus he’s playing a completely different character:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGwB_G0Vyz0
I hadn’t seen that “I’m Afraid of Americans” clip – thank you!!
Such a rock star – the archetype of one. The little wind lifting his hair, the skin-tight pants, and the sense of freedom.
Amazing.
This morning was a little surreal for me because last night, *before* I heard the news, I watched about 10 youtube videos of Bowie. I don’t know why, I was just in the mood for it. You can imagine the spooky feeling when I woke up!
Anne – that’s incredible!!
I remember when Lena Horne died – the night before my friend Mitchell and I had randomly started talking about her and we talked about her for about 40 minutes. He pulled out the biography of her, read excerpts to me, we put on some of her songs. It was like we were sending her off and didn’t even know it.
That clip with Cher. The way they feed off each other was fantastic, such natural performers.
This is a tough day.
Isn’t that an amazing clip?
They aren’t doing anything other than being fabulous FOR each other.
One of those other examples of (practically) a lost art. It takes confidence to just stand up there and perform – without specific choreography, or light-changes … As amazing as they both are, as egomaniacal (which you have to be if you’re a star like that) – the performances are not at all self-involved. That’s the key.
This is a sad day.
Here is a link to an interview where David Bowie talks about the role of his personas in his creative process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFIDXXDsxAo.
Thank you, Elliott!!! Fascinating!
I’ve been singing Starman to myself all day.
I know for a long time he disliked performing Heroes, and that’s one of the reasons I love this version so much. He is so warm and present. A lot of banter at the start, the song begins at about 1:38.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsYp9q3QNaQ&index=1&list=RDbsYp9q3QNaQ
I loved the doppelgänger photos he took with Tilda Swinton. For some superstitious reason I am now worried about her.
Those doppelgänger photos are so great! She said something like: “He looks like he’s from the same planet as I am.” hahaha
She said when she was at Ebertfest that she did not see herself as an actress, per se. She saw herself as an “artist’s model slash clown” – which I thought was extraordinary.
Bowie – with all his knowledge of art and persona – outside of music – had the same thing going on.
and how perfect it was that he actually ended up playing Andy Warhol in a film. It’s the best version of Warhol of all the Warhols there have been onscreen.
I also loved his Tesla in The Prestige. You never doubted that he could do those duplications.
Yes!! He was wonderful in that.
(Although I have a soft spot for John C. Reilly as Nikola Tesla. Crispin Glover as Edison. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gOR91oentQ)
The Nikola Tesla/Mike Tyson Pigeon-Love Society!
Those wigs were something! And the dialog! Thanks for sharing.
Isn’t it hilarious??
I began to learn about human beauty watching David Bowie when I was a child. I feel bereft.
Heather –
beautiful comment. So true.
I said to a friend on FB that I felt “gutted” by the loss.
Aware of the space he took up in the culture – something I took so for granted.
Sheila I’m stunned along with everyone else. I somehow thought he was indestructible. He’s so many generation’s youth! Heroes is me and my husband’s song, we play it often and actually tried really hard to incorporate it into The Two Character Play, when they are trying to go outside. But we couldn’t make it work, (but it was fun trying). Anyway, it’s everyone’s song. Mutecypher, that’s our favorite live version of that song. I didn’t know he didn’t like performing it, probably got tired of doing it. But you can really feel it in that one. Although he did it when the wall was up, right before Reagan gave that speech. He said he could hear people on the other side cheering and couldn’t stop crying. Can you imagine how he felt?!
‘We can be US, just for one day.’ He gave people courage to be themselves. And he was so damn prolific! Great actor, and all the songs he wrote for other people too. I haven’t heard all of Blackstar yet, but the video Lazarus floored me. And with all that he gave and revealed he was so opaque, so mysterious, few really knew him. Always so elegant too. He did it, all. RIP indeed.
Regina –
wow, Bowie and Tennessee Williams. Another great potential fit – I can see why you both were drawn to it (especially with that play, all about show business, persona, and the loneliness of being alone up there onstage – facing the void of need facing you from the darkness.)
// He said he could hear people on the other side cheering and couldn’t stop crying. Can you imagine how he felt?! //
Incredible. Of course he was there in that moment when the wall (actual and metaphorical) started coming down. That’s what he was all about anyway. Now I’m in tears again.
And I have to just say too: I loved him and Iman together. It seemed almost too good to be true. Two masters of Personae. It could have been seen as an act of self-love, right? Marrying your mirror. But every single photo you saw of the two of them, their body language was so relaxed, so intimate – it told the whole story.
When I first read the news about his passing I felt a heaviness overtake me and was instantly transported back in time to the halls of South Kingstown High School during the early 80’s. A former classmate had turned me onto David Bowie and I instantly fell in love with his music, his voice and the personas he portrayed. The song that caught my attention and to this day is a personal favorite was Rebel Rebel. Its opening verse spoke to me:
You’re got your mother in a whirl
She’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl
Hey babe your hair’s alright
Hey babe let’s go out tonight
Whether it was a precursor to me accepting who I am or not remains a mystery. I was having identity problem and I learned from acts like David Bowie that life is not black and white and I should embrace who I really am. After forty eight years on the planet I have. What was once Doug is now Penelope. Regardless of my struggles I have such fond memories of those days and the infancy of MTV and VH1 where artists like David Bowie lit up the screen with his iconic style and timeless songs like China Girl, Let’s Dance and many others. Long live David Bowie.
Penelope:
From the SK High school reference, I think I know who you are. And I am so happy for you, so happy that you have found your own light – that “your hair’s all right” – that Bowie helped hold up that torch for you until you were ready.
If you are not who I think you are, then my apologies – but my paragraph above still stands.
Your comment is one of the most eloquent and powerful tributes to what Bowie could provide.
My best to you.
I have no doubt that I am who you think I am, its not like we had a huge class, and thank you. If memory serves me correctly our last conversation was about a certain high school English teacher.
Yes, Penelope, I remember!
Glad to see you back – I had noticed your “disappearance” from FB and hoped you were doing well. Sounds like you are.
I seriously can’t even with this one. (Having it be the first thing I heard when I woke up didn’t help. David Bowie was my first real object of desire (at the age of 8, no less). He shaped my tastes in both music and men. I don’t normally get too worked up about celebrity deaths – I don’t delude myself into thinking I know them just because I know their art – but Bowie is an exception. I’m with Heather – bereft.
Natalie – I am so moved by your comment. People’s reactions are so raw – and that seems to me to be such a tribute to who he was and what he represented. He was so “opaque” in many ways – as Regina commented above – but it was that very “opaque-ness” that allowed different audiences to project onto him – their own hopes, desires – their own SELVES – and I am sure that he was fully aware of that and part of the reason that he did it.