Bowie

He was one of those artists who rubbed you one way or another. Good or ill.

I have a knee jerk dislike of new music. I have to concentrate and listen to appreciate new sounds that I cannot anticipate and be in sync with.

Warren Raab had just found the album Ziggy Stardust and the Spyders from Mars.
Album art or even book art affects me greatly and this cover was no different. I felt an immediate fascination with this orange-pated "person" who sang of the End Times. Who sang of young love in the future or the past. Time had little bearing.

The music was transparent, although Mick Ronson became a favorite guitar player very soon after discovery of the record.

But the lyrics and the melodies...they took me.
Deposited me in places I had not explored, only had a vague sensation of presence.

The Thin White Duke
David Jones
Ziggy Stardust
Bowie

I am saddened but not surprised that he kept his illness a private thing. As much as he shared he kept secret.

I remember watching a 70s documentary about him and being very impressed with his love of art. He wasn't a rocker as much as a performance artist who happened to grow up during Rock & Roll's infancy. He took to the music because it was what he marinated in.

Alladin Sane
Sigh

As

Fleeting as a mountain.
Permanent as clouds.

Ups and downs are just the wobble of the toy, not malice.

2016

Gud Gawd.
WE MADE IT!!!

Radio Versus Television

Not really a fair fight. Radio wins every time, except in ratings. It has content in the forms of; music, storytelling, news, & talk.

I have been binging on the radio version of Gun Smoke.
The depth of the characters, the stories themselves...so much more than the tv show.

In the radio version you have to imagine Matthew Dillon, not see this hulking man who would scare the Devil himself into contrition.

Kitty is a former prostitute. Yeah, that'd go over huge in 1950s America.

Doc calls people 'sonova bitch' more than any sailor I ever met. He is a mean, nasty drunk. The tv Doc is the progenitor for Bones in Star Trek literally as Dee Kelly was more a cowboy than a spaceman...by choice. He has his quirks and argues with Chester but is basically a sweet old fart.
Not the radio Doc.

The places where your mind has to fill in the voids is one aspect but the writing was something altogether different. Radio had much more grit having been around much longer and feeling like the older person who has nothing to be embarrassed or pleasant about as a choice.

The violence is whatever you are comfortable with imagining.

It also points out how sound makes a movie or tv or a story. Without the poignant, soaring violins, we probably won't cry at just the images. Without the sounds the chainsaw or knife becomes less.

Storytelling is an art form. One worth preserving. The spoken word, aural sex so to speak.


See? NPR agrees with me.

Look At Me

No,
Really.
There is light in the darkness, I'm just keeping my eyes closed.

Tossed

Tossed waves.
Tossed aside.

Inside the maelstrom the silence is deafening.
The rush of wind that never comes.
The smell of the air turned rancid.

Empower

I am a dragon coasting on the breath of the world.

I am a samurai, honed blade of steel.

I am a kitten.

I am the CEO of a major crime organization.

Walter Mitty has nothing on this one. I reach the heights. I touch stars.

I practice kung fu.

My book, my wandering, my mind.