Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Things you wish were just slightly better

I just tried the Trader Joe brand of toothpaste. It taste of licorice.

Science fiction on TV. It's mostly just dressed up horror.

The late, great (?) David Bowie.

Eerily, I didn't begin to realize just how deeply ambivalent I was about both him and his music until early this year, when I started reading Peter Doggett's book about Bowie, "The Man Who Sold the World", which does for Bowie's pre-1980 output (in other words, everything after "Scary Monsters" is squeezed into the afterword) what Ian MacDonald's "Revolution in the Head" did for the Beatles' recordings. A few days into my reading this book, Bowie died.

I wasn't expecting a hagiography or anything like that, but even so, I *was* surprised to see that Doggett appeared to share my ambivalence with his book subject. Doggett seems to find most of Bowie's musical and personality faults more amusing than anything, and the whole book is suffused with a dry detachment from its subject.

My viewpoint is somewhat different -- by the time I finished reading the book and doing a revaluation of Bowie (prompted as much by Doggett's critiques as by the inevitable reassessment of the life and work of any person who lives for as long as he did) I was neither amused nor detached. Quite frankly, I was *alarmed*, and full of regret for all the good money I'd ever spent on CDs of his work, and all the reading I'd ever done of the writings of clueless rock journalists about how brilliant he was.

Yes, I find that I cannot even listen to the "Hunky Dory" or "Ziggy Stardust" albums anymore. I've come to the conclusion that the whole reason that those albums are his most accessible came down to one man, and one man alone: Mick Ronson, the loyal-to-a-fault guitarist, musical director, and (almost always UNCREDITED) song-arranger who not only ended up getting shafted by Bowie (along with the rhythm section of the Spiders), but after his far-too-young passing in 1993 (Ronson had not yet even turned 50), he was the victim of Bowie's callous re-writing of history over the final 22 years of Bowie's life, in which the singer claimed that Ronson's contributions to his music have been overestimated to the extreme. Not from what *I* heard!! Ronson, who at his lowest point almost quit music in the mid-80s to become a baker, never got rich from rock and roll (which probably had a lot to do with his early death, from cancer which might have been more properly treated if he'd been able to afford it), but thanks to Ronson, Bowie sure did, and to minimize that retroactively is, to me, the lowest form of ungraciousness!!

And the music itself? Even Ronson's best riffs and prettiest tunes can't entirely redeem Bowie's thin, quavery, overly mannered voice, much less the hollow pretentiousness of Bowie's lyrics, the latter being is especially transparent in hindsight. Post-Ronson, Bowie did *one* great song, "Rebel Rebel", but even that one was much improved in some its many cover versions. After that fluke, eagle-eyed Bowie saw disco coming from miles away, and managed to climb over the backs of more-talented, more-deserving black artists who had far fewer music-biz advantages than him just because of the color of their skin, with "Young Americans", which I hated passionately even while Bowie was alive, and hate more than ever now (among other reasons, that was the album where Bowie's cocaine consumption was so utterly OTT that his already inspid range was reduced to less than nothing, and his voice would crack unpleasantly before he'd even get through a full verse.)

The next two albums, "Station to Station" and "Low", had both been held in high esteem by me until this year. But while Bowie's vocals are mercifully understanded on those albums, I now think a lot of the synth bands/post-punk bands that were inspired by them easily surpassed them in terms of musicality, lyricism, and singing. "Heroes", which was the album I'd always been most ambivalent about, now revealed itself plainly as his most pretentious, and with some of the ugliest, most eardrum-shattering vocals he ever recorded, and "Lodger" was just plain insipid. And, finally, "Scary Monsters" had the best compositions and arrangements since the Ronson collaborations, but the vocals were almost as bad as on "Heroes", and I found the lyrics particularly disturbing -- on the hit single "Ashes to Ashes", he basically mocks his own poignant, ambiguously idealistic tale of Major Tom by dismissing Major Tom as a worthless junkie; and on the title track, I've always interpreted the words as basically Bowie's renunciation of not only the Ziggy/Aladdin/Diamond-Dog persona, but also of anything remotely feminine within him and without him. Maybe he'd seen the Reagan/Thatcher era coming a mile away? Considering that he spent the whole 80s "playing" the moderately-conservative, no-longer-challenging-or-threatening, stadium-rocking, irony-free rock star, and profiting like there was no tomorrow from mediocre albums that could easily be mistaken for the work of his least talented MTV-friendly acolytes...well then, I'm inclined to believe the answer to that question is a clear-as-crystal *yes.*

Now, then...while I've come to find the recorded output credited to, and sung by, Bowie the artist, *at the same time* I can *still* listen to, and enjoy, the songs that he wrote and/or produced for other artists. Yes, all the young dudes continue to carry the news, thanks to Mott the Hoople's ferocious rock attack and the utterly convincing vocal by their lead singer, Ian Hunter. "Transformer" continues to reign as my favorite Lou Reed solo album. And the three albums Bowie produced and co-wrote for his off-and-on (reportedly off at the time of Bowie's death) friend Iggy Pop remain the only three Iggy albums that hold up to me after more than two listens (I don't even much like the Stooges, not even their Bowie-produced "Raw Power", but that's a whole essay unto itself.)

And, finally, I can *also* still listen to, and enjoy, a lot of the Bowie covers by other artists. Tellingly, though, the best ones tend to be by artists born in between the late 50s and early 60s, who heard Bowie's most accessible songs as impressionable kids, and can still find in their hearts a sentimental spot for them which inspires a more sincere vocal than on the original, a vocal with far more genuine conviction than Bowie's recorded vocals ever showed...to my ears, at least.

I could never have admitted any of the above while Bowie was still alive, for the simple reason that he was one *creepy* dude, who looked to me like he was full of pent-up rage (it was rumored while he was still alive that even a moderate amount of alcohol would have a Jekyll-and-Hyde effect on him), and that it was quite possible to me that he hadn't stopped practicing dark magic after that coke-fueled brouhaha in 1970s Los Angeles after all. Yes, I now admit it -- I was afraid to criticize him on public forums because I was afraid he'd hex me. Call it paranoia if you will, I call it cautious self-preservation. Entertainers who reach a certain level of celebrity usually turn into seriously scary people who think they're above any law. That said, a lot of them get a pass from me because they at least manage to...well, entertain me! But Bowie? Not so much, after all.

I will read this... I might have to take a run up , but I will do it...

Looks interesting Fanfic Lady.

Thanks, Thoth. Whenever you have a chance. No hurry, no worry.

It was very cathartic to write and post, for reasons which will become apparent upon reading.

The Flash, this season. I want to love it, because it's *super-heroes, on my TV!1!!* but gosh, that Barry Allen is STUPID! I want to jump through the screen and smack him. Or at least offer my condolences to the actors on that show, because the writing is so terrible.

Supergirl is getting better, in the unapologetically-campy-and-fun vein that Flash used to tap, at least.

Other things I wish were slightly better;
My easily-distracted, can't-finish-anything brain
My annoying sciatica
My chances of winning the lottery...

I would love some better wall space to display my statues without have to "cram" them. Also storage space for my long boxes.

My playstation. I miss playing my favorite games on it - Suikoden I to V, Kingdom Hearts I and II

Are we the same person? We could be the same person. Have you recently become addicted to doughnuts?

Your post pretty much sums up my feelings about Flash and S-Girl. Both have promise but agree, the writing, particularly the science writing could be smarter and Flash (maybe more than Barry) could be a LOT smarter.

I enjoyed the Superman, though he seems a bit smallish. I suppose that's more a prejudice of mine than a necessty. But I thought both actors were hitting the notes.

American Horror Story. Most seasons start off with great promise, then meander a bit in the middle once they kill the mystery by explaining the secrets (how Vampires/ghosts/magic work) and then consistently fail to stick the ending. I enjoy when they play with, and subvert, tropes, but there's so much potential for them to mine that it's frustrating when they pass up chances to be better.

As has been well established, I'm Set's Alt+ID. Of course, you could easily be another personality trapped in his mind, and I'm actually an Alt+ID of you both. Something else else regular like that.

Just re-reading the fast-food chicken laments on Page 2, and realizing that I stopped eating the stuff (all varieties) a couple of years back because they're all hell on my aging stomach. [grumble]

"What a drag it is... getting old." Etc.