The first time I heard Bowie

I was at an older friend's apartment on the local college campus and was, maybe, 14 years old. My mother didn’t approve of these older chums but then, she approved of so little where I was concerned. I went where I went, befriended whoever appealed.

Ziggy Stardust had just come out that year. I hadn’t heard it. In fact, I hadn’t heard any Bowie yet. These friends, whose names and faces utterly escape me now, had the disc spinning. I was transfixed. Mesmerized.

Moonage Daydream, Starman and, of course Ziggy Stardust—all brill.

It was Suffragette City that thoroughly, completely turned me on and tuned me up. The rolling guitars leading into the lyric Wham bam thank you ma’am—WOW!

Do you remember? Bowie went on the Dinah Shore Show (the ‘70s era Oprah) at least once but I think more

"David, you're a puzzle to many people," says Dinah "There are a lot of David Bowies - but is there really only one David Bowie?"

"Well, I started as a painter," Bowie replies, "but I was a natural ham. Rock and roll is superb way of releasing that. I still act the songs rather than sing them. If the French can get away with it, I figure so can I.

The publicist averred that Bowie’s wife Angela wanted to come too  "but she's home cooking for a dinner party they're having later with Alice Cooper and Ray Bradbury.” Oh MAN, I so wanted to be inside his world!

I wish I could find a pic from the show she was on with him—it blew my tiny teenage mind. They looked almost identical. Androgyny was big then. The other bit that I learned on Dinah was that Bowie was bi. This was the ‘70s—we were all supposed to be bi. Well, all the hip, cool and spiritual people were and Bowie was the height of chic, intellectual, artistic sophistication. He made experimentation alluring and AOK.

During my last season with a traveling carnival—1980—I was "living" in a tiny cab-over type trailer. It was really just a large cap and it was a fellow carnie’s truck to boot—meager to say the very least. It felt truly posh though, after seasons of sleeping in the joint (bedding down on the ground in my game’s canvas and wood set up), on friend’s trailer couches and in pup tents. I’d bought an 8 track player and a bunch of tapes at a junk shop in the last spot we'd played. Amongst my treasured find was Diamond Dogs, Station to Station and Aladdin Sane.

I’d crank Panic in Detroit to max volume and feel, for one night anyway, like I wasn’t alone in that Texan ocean of cowboy hat wearing, Merle Haggard listening, aliens. Bowie held my hand so that I could survive that last season on the road.

Years later, long after I’d pitched the player, I dumped the tape of Diamond Dogs and got the CD. Then I went deaf. Great timing, eh? I can still hear that gorgeous rubber band guitar from the title cut in my head. It was decidedly and comprehensively mega brill.

‘Scuse me, I gotta go lay down and try to get my internal turntable to play a Bowie marathon now.

And the stars look very different today...
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do.