Drive-In Saturday, redux

aka. And David Bowie Never Spoke To Me Again…

…In which Bowie and his acolyte Morrissey bump heads and go their separate ways.

Being a quivering fan of both these behemoths, I find this story both amusing and illuminating. To start at the start, Morrissey, always a big fan of glam-rock but born too late to participate (which is fortuitous, because he couldn’t have pulled off wearing that much makeup) never made a  secret of his admiration for Bowie, and in 1992 he enlisted Mick Ronson to produce his own glam-rock album, Your Arsenal. Wherein the song I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday made a conspicuous quote from Rock’N'Roll Suicide, which Bowie did not fail to notice. Bowie enjoyed the joke, and recorded a cover of I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday. To make it even more meta, he did it as a parody of his own Ziggy-era style – that is, highly theatrical and camptastic. So the friendship continued, inasmuch as it’s possible to have one with Morrissey, until the fateful Outside tour of 1995, which opening act Morrissey bailed out of after only a handful of shows. The problem, apparently was Bowie’s innovative but impractical idea that his band would set up and come out while Morrissey finished up his set. Moz complained the arrangement was unfair to the fans. If you can find a video of one such awkward transition, the problem is visibly one of power. Morrissey is simply not willing to genuflect, even for his heroes – for which, he claims, Bowie never spoke to him again. Making for yet another in a lifetime of severed alliances and nursed grudges for Morrissey, no surprises there. Go find some interviews – he can be a right mean bastard. It can only be taken as some kind of newfound sense of goodwill that Moz started on his last tour adding Drive-In Saturday to his setlist. He must not be grudging anymore. If anything, he’s made it even more over-the-top than the original. (Though who does he think he is to change the words? Genuflect, dammit!) Perhaps, they shall let bygones be bygones and maybe do something creative together. Wouldn’t that be nice? Or would it end in tears again?

Drive-In Saturday

“She’s uncertain if she likes him, but she knows she really loves him”

Take it from the red-haired alien with the chandelier earring. That line above, it’s a sentiment that doesn’t make sense – until one day you realize you know exactly what it means. Because you’re there and it’s your sentiment. I think it’s infatuation he’s talking about, that feeling. All going to show there isn’t a moment in life without a line of Bowie to turn to. Even if you have to find these moments of truth inside of some of Ziggy’s science-fiction twisted ideas of post-apocalyptic Americana. Presciently, he thought the American path was leading to a world where the virtual experience replaced any flesh-and-blood actions.

Not to stray too far off topic, but doesn’t Ziggy look lovely? I gotta say though, as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize that what I thought was my manly ideal really isn’t. Admittedly, I’ve never crossed paths with anyone even remotely resembling a Bowie, and if I did my brain would surely melt right down my spine, but…Honestly, the qualities that I value in Bowie, Jagger and their idolatrous ilk don’t translate to real people. In other words, IRL cross-dressing anorexics aren’t all that attractive. Alpha males are attractive. Everything I think is attractive in rock stars, I really want for myself. I don’t want a spaceboy, I wanna be a spaceboy. Another way to put it; admire him though I do (and I do and I do and I do) I can’t imagine wanting to be around someone like the young Bowie – his bow is strung too tightly – but I can dream and dream about being the young Bowie. It’s all a moot point, though, because Ziggy Stardust doesn’t exist and never did and David Bowie would be the first to tell you that.