Goodbye Spaceboy

I was aware of him from an early age, i'm guessing maybe 8 or 9.  My big sis, who was six years older than me, had received the Diamond Dogs record for her birthday or something, it had the gatefold cover, on the one half was a drawing of a shirtless, ginger-haired Dave and when you opened it up it revealed his canine bottom half, it blew my fucking young mind, i did not even remotely understand it at that age but was most definitely fascinated by it.  And i'd never even heard a song. Though that's probably not true, i'm sure i'd been exposed to David Bowie blasting out of my big sis' room but i heard a lot of music come from that room, some i paid more attention to than others and for some reason i have a feeling i listened when i heard Davy Jones...

Fast forward a decade or so... i'll freely admit that my sister and i had very little in common. She was six years older, never played sports, was done smoking pot at 16, was and is incredibly intelligent, she was pissed i was born cuz after almost 6 years of being an only child the last thing you wanted was a fucking little shit brother... of course i was younger, male, a hot-shit basketball player, started smoking pot at 16 (and never stopped), part idiot part maniac, and loved to annoy my sister, the one thing we did and still do share is music, she introduced me to New Order, Blondie, Devo, and of course David Bowie... Somewhere in the mid 80's she was dating this gigantic asshole, for some reason i think there's a post about him somewhere, but back then he and his brother ran a tire and towing business, it just so happened Bowie's tour bus broke down and they were called in to fix it, GA mentioned how his fiance loved Dave and was gonna be thrilled to hear that he fixed his bus, the manager then paid for the work and handed GA two tickets, told him Mr. Bowie thanked him and would love for him to bring his fiance to the show... the tickets ended up being right on the side of the stage and at one point while the band jammed Dave snuck back for a cigarette, my sister about passed out and as she stood staring at him he looked over, then smiled and waved, i believe she then did pass out...

Now in June of 1990, David Bowie played the Richfield Coliseum for two nights on the Sound + Vision tour, i had been home from college for a few weeks and had procured a job at Hills Dept. Store across from Parmatown Mall, i was a cashier, later they'd train me to catch shoplifters, i was your typical broke wastoid and the night before the second of Bowie's gigs i had gone to see UB40 and the Smithereens thus blowing what little cash i had, thus when i heard Bowie was playing i was gutted, in the pre-internet days one had to be up on this shit and this stoned 19 yr old was not, my sister looked at me and said you NEED to see David Bowie, she then offered to buy my birthday present a a few months early, she'd give me the money for the ticket but i had to take the money and go straight to get it, i was floored, i grabbed the cash and hauled ass to the mall and bought my ticket in the bottom of the May Co., i didn't even know May Co. had a basement until that point, i stood on the white tile speckled with gold clutching my ticket like that Charlie kid...

I picked up One-eyed Bobby (who also bought a ticket) at his house and drove straight to the beverage store where our friend worked, i bought a pony case of the Queen city's finest, Little King's Cream Ale, i had rolled the last of my stash into a couple of joints and we headed out to Richfield, i parked the '78 mint green Olds Cutlass Supreme and One-eyed Bobby and i started downing beers and smoking the joints and when we were properly fucked up we went in, we were in the nosebleed section, straight back from the stage all the way a the top but it didn't matter, we were gonna see Bowie. And so we sat down...

The Sound + Vision tour was to retire the hits, Dave said that after that tour he would play those songs no more and move on to his new material, as we sat in the rafters of Richfield the house lights fell except for a single small spotlight, from the darkness you could here the opening strums of Space Oddity, sauntering and strumming an acoustic he walked towards the light and started singing, as the band began to kick in and the song build from nowhere came a giant leg, a leg that looked a lot like Bowie's, same suit and all, and the real Dave, the one singing, deftly jumped out of the way as the well clad leg came down right where he had been standing, it was fucking brilliant, it was both understated and grandiose at the same time, huge gauze projection screens, sometimes the band would be in front, sometimes behind, Dave the same and working with the images projected, it was cutting edge shit for the time, no pyrotechnics or gimmicks, it was art, music and film together and working as one and it was quite impressive...

And he played the hits as they say, the couple next to us had taken a shine to us and shared a joint, at times One-Eyed Bobby and i were singing and laughing, other times damn near in tears from one tune or another, be it a favorite or just us being on our way to wasted, it was great to be nineteen, it was great to be seeing fucking David Bowie!!, a 43 yr. old Bowie if my math is correct, and then at the end of the night he smiled and talked about how the song he was about to do was written by a Irishman and it'd be best song with an Irishman, out walked Bono and they broke into Gloria and then The Jean Genie, One-Eye and myself nearly pissing ourselves, 3 years before One-Eye's dad, a radio hot shot, had helped us score 8th row center tickets for the Joshua Tree tour at old Cleveland Stadium (i had just turned 17), now Paul Hewson was here to check out the cutting edge stage stuff Dave was using for what would be the first of the utterly over the top U2 tours, but that night? it was perfect...

The rest of the summer was spent drinking and smoking and chasing girls, Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane and Hunky Dory played on boomboxes and in station wagons, it was all fucking gravy, i've on more than a dozen or so occasions told my big sis that that ticket was the best fucking present i've ever gotten... Dave meant a lot to me, the first person i called when i found out was my sister, i thanked her again but this time i joked she had impeccable taste in music for a girl from the West Side, as for Mr. Jones? i wouldn't know where to begin or end so i won't try, he was different things to all of us, i don't need to make any profound statements, it is an odd phenomena missing someone you've never met, being bummed at the passing of a stranger, sad because there would be no more new music or ideas, sad because artists with the guts and smarts to do what they want and not worry about the consequences come along so infrequently... maybe just a simple thank you... goodbye Spaceboy...