Tag: david bowie

where did monday go

1. I feel like I’ve been out of the general loop of things for a few days now; my son was sick for most of last week, and I stayed home with him twice, and between that and having yesterday off, I’ve simply lost track of time and space.  And all I can offer in response is a quote from one of the more haunting tracks on Blackstar:  “Where the fuck did Monday go?”

2.  I don’t like abandoning books; there’s something about the act of giving up that makes me feel guilty in ways that I don’t feel with regards to music, movies, games.  But I gave up on Paula Hawkins’ “Girl On The Train” over the weekend (for reasons I’m still struggling to articulate), and the only reason why I haven’t yet given up on China Mieville’s new novella “This Census Taker” is because it’s very very short, and I could probably finish it on the evening commute.  (I’m very hit or miss with respect to China Mieville – I’ve given several of his books a try and the only one I finished was “The City and the City”; there’s something about his prose that makes my scalp itch, I have to read and re-read every sentence 4 or 5 times because I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.)

3. Work continues (at a glacially slow pace) on the new album.  I need time to finish lyrics, but I don’t have the time; and when I do carve out the time, I don’t have the inspiration.  Even now, when work is somewhat slow, I’m simply not feeling it.  I’m tempted to sign up for this year’s RPM Challenge just as a way to kick myself in the ass and finish what I started last year.  I do have some friends who have been politely kicking me in the ass, too, but I think I need to stare a deadline in the face and deal with it head-on.

4.  Oh, but distractions continue to haunt me.  For example, the new iOS game, “Swapperoo“, which is maybe the best and most novel use of the match-3 template since Bejeweled.  I’m helplessly addicted and I’m just hoping that’s because it’s brand-new, and that I won’t be playing this until 3 in the morning for the next month.

5.  Some movies of note:  the wife and I finally saw “Ex Machina” over the weekend, and WHOA.  Absolutely fantastic; terrific screenplay, great cast (and it was especially neat to see Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac together in a non-Star Wars context), hauntingly evocative cinematography, incredible soundtrack (co-written by Geoff Barrow, of Portishead fame).  I’m a little troubled by an element of the plot that I’d rather not discuss unless we’re OK talking about spoilers, and I’m not sure that too many people who’ve read this have seen it, so maybe we’ll talk about that in the comments.  But man.  GO SEE THIS MOVIE.  It’s free on Amazon Prime, if you have that, and it’s totally worth it.

And the wife and I also finally got to see the new Star Wars together; it was my second time, her third.  It’s arguably even better the second time, now that I wasn’t distracted by my foreknowledge of spoilers and such.  I think Rey is the best, and I can not fucking wait for Episode 8.

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Of all my many musical blind spots (i.e., musicians that I really ought to have listened to and studied before now), none sting quite so forcefully as David Bowie.  This was as true yesterday, only a few days after the release of “Blackstar”, as it was this morning, when I woke up and looked at my phone and saw the news.  I couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it, somehow thought it must be a hoax.

I have long been an appreciator of Bowie’s cultural influence, even if I never really got into his music.  Indeed, you didn’t even necessarily have to know his music to appreciate his massive cultural impact and influence.  My first exposure to David Bowie as cultural icon was the quote that led off “Breakfast Club”.

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When Derek Zoolander and Hansel are about to have a “walk-off”, of course David Bowie would be the judge; when Christopher Nolan directed his first post-Batman movie and needed someone to play Nikolai Tesla, of course he’d use David Bowie; when Ricky Gervais needed someone to deliver the ultimate piss-take, David Bowie fucking destroyed him.   David Bowie has been the de facto coolest person on the planet for nearly 50 years.

It’s a shame that I never heard his music during those formative years when he would’ve done the most good.  When I was in my early teens and going to performing arts summer camp, I was getting introduced to prog bands and other stuff like Zeppelin, Rush… and from there it was a short hop skip and jump to jam bands like Phish (who, of course, have a song called “David Bowie“).  I of course had heard his ubiquitous hits – “Let’s Dance”, the “Dancing In the Streets” thing with Mick – but I didn’t necessarily know that Vanilla Ice had committed blasphemy by ruining the bassline from “Under Pressure”.  It really wasn’t until a few years ago that I started trying to correct my Bowie deficiency; I’d bought the 30-year anniversary reissue of Ziggy Stardust, and then a little later I took a crash course in the Berlin trilogy on Spotify, but it was a little too obtuse for me; I can be somewhat of a stubborn curmudgeon as far as my musical tastes go, and Bowie was just too weird for me.  (It also drove me crazy that his bandmates’ instruments never seemed to be in tune – Exhibit A is the bassline in “Suffragette City“.)

Still and all, though, I grieve today as most of the world grieves.  Bowie was a singular talent, a visionary, a man seemingly not of this Earth.  His loss cannot be overstated.  He will be missed.  We are fortunate to have had him in our lives, in whatever capacity that might have been.

The stars look very different today.

[See also this collection of tributes.]