David Bowie is more than a star, more than a celebrity, more than an icon, more than anyone, anything, anywhere. Also, he is fucking cool. The coolest guy in the world. There is an intensity in the room that I cannot discern. I am only trying to get out. I cannot meet him. He means too much to me.
As I said, fame doesn’t impress me, I have been in the game for two decades, but David Bowie is more than the “famewhatsyourname” of the elegant and eternally loved intergenerational hit song. It is almost embarrassing. I can’t explain, but maybe you would try to understand if I explain properly.
If you took Beatlemania, the real one, not the touring company show, but the insane, truly historical and hysterical, Saint Vitus Dance of the newly born teenagers, happening on and around the weeks John, Paul, George and Ringo came to America in 1964, and you boiled all those tears and screams and enthusiasms of the countless girls trying to hide in laundry bins and pose as room service carts, and made it into a tincture, strong as plutonium, then injected yourself with it, mainlining all that worship and admiration and fan clubs and love and ecclesiastical bliss – but remembering that it wasn’t about The Beatles, but about David Bowie – not that I do not absolutely love The Beatles, and have had life changing moments with one or two, but I will tell you that another time – then you might get an idea of how much a freak I am about the cat from Japan. If you felt in my veins what I felt right then, you would understand. You would make that the moment you would want to capture and hold in your heart forever, into all of your next lifetimes, into heaven, over the river and over the rainbow. Your future self would wake from dreams of this moment, not knowing why, but ever and forever replaying itself into infinity.
Marilyn Manson is talking with a mad passion. He loves David Bowie, maybe a little like I do. He says that he proposed to Dita with the song “Be My Wife” and that he listens to “Diamond Dogs” right before he goes on stage. Dita smiles and winks at me in the corner. She is beautiful beyond words, with her jet black hair and white, translucent skin. I am convinced she is part woman, part orchid, a hothouse flower that wears couture and will be married to rock.
David is looking at me, and smiling, stealing looks out of the corner of his eye. He is stunning. His beauty is relentless and alarming. Fresh from the concert hall’s Byzantine corridors – I wonder if he uses the showers that are always back there.
I never do. I emerge out of the bowels of the dressing rooms to the green room, the fans waiting in annoyed anticipation, and then disappointment, as I arrive, sweaty and makeup running everywhere, friendly and too small for them to believe that it is actually me. When I receive people, I greet them quickly, so that I might leave the theatre quickly, and go to bed. I am no diva. I will sign every autograph I am asked for, and I love and adore anyone who will wait around to meet me, talk to me, but I cannot imagine that I am really that interesting, especially after talking about myself onstage for hours.
But here it is a different story. This time, I am the fan. The biggest fan. My heart will burst out of my chest in a moment. His eyes dart towards me, there are others to talk to, but he keeps looking. Smiling. He is magnificent. Time hasn’t changed him, not a bit, not at all. Tears are running down my face and here it is, the moment that I wish I could play over and over again, when I die. When it is all said and done, and I have reached the “Afterlife” set, and the crew is setting up the green room just like it was. They have hired an actor to look like David Bowie, and more to play the supporting roles of Ava and Dawnne, Marilyn and Dita, Nadir – the tremendously helpful tour manager, Coco Schwab – yes THE Coco Schwab. David reaches both arms out to me. His hands are warm, and he holds my face. He kisses me on both cheeks and says my name. He smells like violets.
There is more, but there is a show I must to do tonight, and there isn’t time to say all I want to. Some things, you need to keep to yourself anyway, because they are yours. Sometimes when you talk about them, they cease to be yours. Some things, I want to hang onto, I want to hang onto myself. These are my precious gems, my memory is my jewelry box, and the twinkling ballerina does a pirouette whenever I open it.
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