Don’t Tear Me Up

Wandering Spirit, 1993 solo album. Not too bad for fifty. Mick was pretty hot at fifty. I, of course, would’ve been ten when this came out. Which is epic to think about. How alienated does a kid have to be if the only thing to latch onto is someone old enough to be granddad? I had an interesting experience, in probably 1997 or ’98. Right around the time when I started getting online. Before I learned that you can’t, and should not, believe everything you see on the internet. The web was still a bit crude back then, and I didn’t know how to tell a legit site from a quack one. I ended up going down a few rabbit holes and one of them was a web community dedicated to the conviction that Mick Jagger is really gay and has been all along. A few rumors made up by Angie Bowie notwithstanding, Mick Jagger has been very convincingly not-gay throughout his lengthy career. Plenty of closeted gay stars have spent entire lifetimes successfully (or not so much) covering up their tracks, so it’s not impossible. However, the hundreds of women and  the various impregnations – that seems like behavior above and beyond the call of mere covering up. By all logic and judging by the evidence the very gayest you can give him is maybe a homo-erotic man-crush or two. But it seems some desperate souls want to believe what they want to believe, and they’ll build webpages about it. And young people raised to believe in the written word will be shocked by what they read there. I read not only that Mick is and has been secretly gay, but also that his decrepit appearance (in 1997) was due not to the usual ravages of a rock’n'roll lifestyle but to full blown AIDS. Yeah, I saw a website that said Mick Jagger was a gay man with AIDS. I found it shocking of course, but in a day or two the logic kicked in and I realized it made no sense and random internet sites should not be believed. Lesson learned. What really hit home was not so much the allegation, but the implication. If Mick (or anyone) has full blown AIDS, then obviously, he’s not long for this world. Which leads to the dreadful epiphany of Mick Jagger’s mortality. What it says about me that I had a full-out existential crisis, in which I didn’t eat for two days as I grappled the idea of Mick Jagger’s mortality, I’m not sure it says anything good. Nobody close to me had ever died (and in fact, to this day nobody close to me has ever died) so thinking, really thinking, about mortality didn’t occur to me. Of course, realizing the mortality of someone else is really a step to realizing your own mortality. Somehow, the thought that Mick Jagger will die absolutely brought on a conscious epiphany about death. As a matter of fact, just stopping to think about a world without Mick Jagger in it fills me with existential dread. I guess we all inevitably have moments of dwelling upon the meaning of life, the mortality of mankind, and one’s own fragility within this world, but everyone takes a different path to that thoughtplace.

Learn Your Supermodels: Raquel Zimmermann

Not too many girls who’ve come along in the past decade have earned the sobriquet super. That’s partly because the culture itself has changed. If the public doesn’t want supermodels, there won’t be very many supermodels. If designers only want girls to hang clothes off of, how can there be supermodels? In the other paw, we have the girls themselves, and there’s only a few who stick in the mind. Being a good model and a super one…there’s a difference. Raquel Zimmermann is as close to super as anyone has been in a long time. Agreed, the last true blue supermodel is Gisele. Men-on-the-street know who she is. Random pedestrians may not know who she is, but in fashion, Raquel is at the top of the beanpole. She’s charismatic, she’s dramatic, she has a commanding presence. She’s flexible. Put her in enough fuchsia and mauve and she’s a dead ringer for Jerry Hall. Looks good in clothes, too!

 

Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

For some of you younger viewers out there – this is the same person who died a year and a half ago, filmed when he still resembled a human being of identifiable race and gender. You know, before the psychological problems became glaringly self-evident. Even when Thriller was big, it was already visible that something was the matter. He was already a bit creepy, even then. This is my favorite Michael Jackson song, partly because it’s before he became creepy.

Don’t Stop the Dance

1985 cheesy sexyface video alert! It’s pretty funny when the model is ‘playing’ that saxophone. All making fun of a low-budget video aside, this is a great song.

Don’t Stop

How very 1977 this is, in all ways! I should learn more about Fleetwood Mac. Their story is, I’ve heard, as rife with excess and unpleasantness as any.  And I do like stories about the road to rock’n'roll hell. Paved with cocaine, it is.

Don’t Stand So Close To Me

If you’re an avid fan of Sting, you should hop out and buy the February issue of Harper’s Bazaar. There’s an editorial in there featuring Mr. Sumner and his wife Trudie Styler. It’s supposed to be sexy and/or cute. Personally, I found it nauseating, but I’m clearly lacking the avidity of fandom necessary to fully appreciate it. No, Sting just doesn’t do it for me. Though I have to admire the unstudied charm of the videos he made with the Police. Jumping about and being silly – not the first thing you would expect from a man who’s developed a reputation for smug self-seriousness. Perhaps that reputation is unjust, or perhaps not. Then there’s his deft hand with the literary reference. Sting signals his literary awareness not only by incorporating themes from “that book by Nabokov”, but also by straight out saying it in the song. Such a cultured boy!

Don’t Say No

Tina Weymouth is badass. Agreed? This one time, I had a long and detailed dream about hanging out with Tina and Chris Frantz at their house, having dinner and walking around in the woods. It was awesomely well-decorated, as I recall. Yeah, I have a lot of vivid dreams randomly populated by famous people. Yeah. Anyway. I hear that Tina has recently been involved with Gorillaz, who are an imaginary cartoon band, who nevertheless are said to put on a mean live show and who I’ve never listened to actually, but are supposed to be really cool and whatnot. So that’s nice.

Don’t Look Down

I can’t remember the last time I listened to Tonight all the way through. It’s been so long I think it was a year that started with a one. Which is an unusual snub, because I regularly have ten-hour David Bowie refresher listening sessions. But I clearly recall not liking it all the way through. To be fair, though, Blue Jean is on there, and Loving the Alien. And this. This being an Iggy Pop cover, which seems to be a trend. Iggy’s own version, found on New Values (1979), has slightly different lyrics and might even be an inch or two better. And of course it’s one of those Iggy Pop songs that already sound like they might be David Bowie songs. We all know an Iggy Pop album is like a petri dish growing the stem cells for new David Bowie songs. Not to belittle the qualities of either one. They’re always each good songs on their own terms.

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me

My, that’s lovely. Congratulations to Elton John and David Furnish on their new son, Zachary Jackson Levon, born on Christmas day just like the song says. Elton and David had for a couple of years been trying to adopt a boy from a Ukrainian orphanage but where denied for being over-the-hill and gay. The new baby was born via a surrogate mother in  California. Despite what Ukrainian authorities might think, becoming a first-time father at the advanced age of 63 should be absolutely no hindrance. Elton and David have a secure long-term marriage and all the money in the world. Obviously, Elton will be a great father. Just look at him – he’s just a cuddly ball of love, tiaras and all. Anyway, the baby’s full name is Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John. I think Levon Hercules Dwight would have been a better name. Not that it’s anyone’s biznicks.

Model of the Week: Irina Lazareanu

It’s due time to showcase one of the more interesting new faces. Although Irina Lazareanu has been modeling for nearly ten years, she’s remained resolutely fringe. She’s far from mainstream – you won’t see much of her in AmericanVogue, but she works with the edgiest designers and photographers. She was discovered by Kate Moss, which lends instant permanent cool points – anyone ‘one-apart’ with Kate Moss earns instant mega cool points. Then there’s the cool of her Transylvanian birthplace, Quebecois upbringing, shattered ballet career, romance with Pete Doherty, nascent musical ambitions, and her ever present signature jet black bangs.