Tag Archives: David Bowie Serious Moonlight

The Loving Other of Bowie

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I did not have complicated musical tastes as a boy. I liked The Partridge Family, Helen Reddy and K-Tel records like Fantastic.

Elton John was on the track list…twice!

I collected 45 singles like Disco Tex’s Get Dancin’ and Shirley and Co’s Shame, Shame, Shame and sang along. You get the picture.

I also liked David Bowie. I loved Ziggy Stardust. I listened to that record over and over. I didn’t understand any of it, that it was a concept album or that he was challenging gender stereotypes. None of it. I just loved the music.

Ziggy Stardust Artwork
Who is he/she?

When I realized many years later that the music gave people who were shunned and excluded a feeling of being part of something, I was amazed because I felt like that too, even though I looked like I didn’t fit into that bracket.

In my kid brain, it was just music. And now I realize there is no such thing.

Canada’s Soul: Whitehorse to Vancouver

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I took a bus up to Whitehorse, Yukon. (I didn’t hitchhike because I was scared of being left in the middle of nowhere and getting eaten by a bear.)

July 20: A 24-hour delay seems possible due to the massive bridge washouts – sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Throughout the journey, women – making up the majority of the population – sleep, smoke and drink without complaint. So I’ll smoke my way to sleep.

The silhouettes of the great mountains dominate the scenery. A dark black storm cloud approaches; hell is bound to break loose. The trees await in silence as the silver bus rushes on.July 22: I hiked alone up Grey Mountain, on the outskirts of Whitehorse, and wrote at the top: Humanity – a definition. Impossible. It is so assorted. There are some with no legs, some with no eyes – mentally and physically – and some with no heart. Some cloud their eyes with darkened glasses and some wear not what they need but what others say. (It goes on.)

July 24: I took a 26-hour bus ride down to Vancouver. Graffiti on Pink Mountain Inn: #1: Why did God give seagulls wings? So that they’d be able to beat the Indians to the dump. #2 Toking is like working here. The harder you suck, the higher you get.

Arrived in Vancouver where I stayed at the hostel for five days and saw Peter Gabriel and David Bowie and the newly-opened BC Place Stadium.