#1/ "The Stars Look Very Different Today..." A Big Thank You to David Bowie
It’s been four days since the world lost David Bowie. I woke up to this news around 12:30pm on January 11th. I cried all day. Couldn’t listen to a full song without crying. I see my friends and everyone living their life and going about their days and I just can’t get over the fact that my idol is gone. I don’t know who I’d be today without letting classic records like Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs and ‘Heroes’, etc; into my head to take me away from the world for a little while. Like most, when I listen to Bowie, I felt a connection. Like wow, there is a human being who knows how it feels to be different, yet embraces it in such a beautiful manner. He had the balls to do so many things that normal people couldn’t do and because of these things, he’s reached a deeper level of understanding for kids and adults like me. I always longed to be a kid in the 70′s. Now I only want it more. I know I wasn’t there as it was happening, but 20 some odd years later I was a 12 year old kid discovering it all for the first time. The first Bowie song I ever heard was a song called “Lady Grinning Soul” from a biographical film about a band I started listening to at the time called The Runaways, starring Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart. It was the scene where Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) lip syncs the song to her high school with the Aladdin Sane lightning bolt on her eye. Not only was the scene powerful and had major impact on me, but the song was something i’d never heard before in my life. I immediately started researching “this Bowie guy” because I was so interested. Thanks to the internet, I found out all about him. Downloaded all of his records (which left so many viruses on my old computer) and I just listened. It wasn’t long before I was in love with David Bowie. Not long afterwards, I got my first stereo with a record player as a gift. I immediately went to my local flea market and got as many records as I could. One of these records was Aladdin Sane by David Bowie, which I was SO psyched to find in a flea market in Harriman, TN. It was my favorite album of his and NOW I get to experience it the way all the lost kids in that era experienced it. I would spend many nights getting lost inside of it. Putting all of the bullshit that was happening at school and all of my inner self problems behind me and finally having that moment of “No, I’m not outside anymore.” As the years went by, my love only got stronger. When my house burnt down in 2013, I lost all 200 something records I had. But you better believe that the first one I had the opportunity to recover was Aladdin Sane. Along with a few more of his albums I had heard on the internet. I still spend many many nights just listening over and over again. Now I’m just a few weeks shy of being 18 years old and SCARED shitless of the “adult life”. But I wouldn’t have made it this far being the person that I truly am, without David fucking Bowie. He inspired me to do so much, to write, to be a freak, and to not only come out of the closet, but to come out with NO worries and NO fucks given. Because that’s just who I am.
God took away my favorite person in the world and I just don’t think it’s fair. It’s not fair that this generation (my generation and the millennials) will ever have something as genuine, iconic, influential and true as David Bowie. An icon. A TRUE artist. THE artist. I don’t know HOW I could’ve survived without Bowie and of course other bands as well. But his life, his art and his music really made me realize who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. Thank you David Bowie for everything. Because of you, I will never stop dreaming and I will never stop being the weird kid that I am. That’s all because you taught me it was okay to be who you are by doing it in the most exciting and inspiring way possible. Thank you for teaching me and millions of others to love ourselves. I don’t think I’ll ever get over this.
