What is it with David Bowie? I'm 44. I met my partner about, oh, I don't know, ... six or seven years ago? She's a fair bit younger than I am. A good friend of mine is in his mid-fifties and his partner is a couple of years older than he is.
So, anyway, in an early holiday present avalanche, I gave my early-20's something a CD of Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars." She loved it. Big time. So one night, we're all together and the goils start gushing over David Bowie. How he's the most beautiful man in existence.
So, ... okay. No mas! No mas! (whatever that means) I don't see how Bowie is so Beautiful, but whatever. .... So here's the thing. While our wimmenfolk were salivating over this OTHER MAN, I, entirely in a spirit of parody, and fun, and self-referential neo-pseudoist whatchamacallit, i admit to making the homophobic joke of "What do you see in that fag anyway?"
And I admit to this because in all honesty, I've overcome the stupid homophobia of my late-baby-boomer growing-upness. The joke is that when a guy back in the day felt threatened by women being attracted to other dudes, he lamely tried to tell the gals that the dude was queer.
And I ain't a homophobe no more. Except in the case of male-rapists who happen to be gay and bigger than me. Damn right I'm skeert!
And thing is ... I wasted a lot of time. Back in the day I wouldn't have listened to Bowie's "Let's Dance" and I wood-ah been missing out on shit like this:
All of this is my way of seguing into the reason why I want to embed the next YouTube video. I ain't pretending to be younger than I am. I ain't trying to be hip to what the kids are listening to. Lady Gaga hasn't made a song that i don't mind. They're all okay. I don't understand why she's such a monster, but I'm okay with the reality that she's huge. Sure. I don't mind.
So there was this YouTube sensation, ... Winnipeg's Maria Aragon, who appears (in the still for her YouTube video) to be smiling away singing Lady Gaga's tune about how your sexual orientation is nothing to be persecuted for. So Lady Gaga saw it and tweeted about it and it's got over 19 and a half million hits and everything, so they sang it together at the ACC in Toronto a couple of nights ago.
So, not having heard the original, or Aragon's version of it, I decided to watch a YouTube video of their duet and I have to say that this is the first time I appreciate that Gaga has as good a voice as Christina Aguilera and that the song is pretty good and that Aragon is a talented youngster herself.
I thought it was nice enough to post.
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4 comments:
Man, you're 44? I thought you were university age or somewhere in and around there. Definitely under 30. And I mean that as a compliment, by the way. I'm terrible at trying to ascertain folks ages on the net. I'm 47 and was a huge Bowie fan up until Let's Dance when everyone became a fan. Prior to the commercial success of that dull record, being a Bowie fan (or worse an Iggy Pop fan) was a dangerous game. I got beaten up pretty bad at school one time by a couple of Iron Maiden lunkheads for the deadly sin of wearing my cherished (and sleeveless) Lust for Life t-shirt. As the fists flew I remember hearing, "David Bowie fucks him in the ass you know". We all knew the rumours of the time, but what did I care what rock stars did in their spare time in between making great music? If anything, I thought it was cool that they would experiment sexually like that. To me it felt like courage and bravery that they could be so defiant against something that was apparently so wrong. Anyway, thought I'd share. Keep doing what you do here on your blog and don't call anyone "fags" anymore. Cheers :)
Omar,
You can be the first online person I share this with:
I tend to get along well with all ages. And I have some new friends of the mid-twenties age and I went to one of their birthday bashes. They're a couple living in their father's house in the basement apartment.
As I was being introduced to my fellow party-goers, one of them said "You have a lovely home." I said "I don't live here." She said, "Well, whatever. It's a beautiful house." I said "Yeah. It's nice." It wasn't until the father was introduced that I realized I was mistaken for him.
Yep. Older than i realize.
I've always said that my homophobia was of the mere words variety. I don't know why, but I just appeared to be immune to the visceral hatred thing. At 18 or 19 I stopped a gay bashing incident. The homophobe's vicious, violent rage just seemed so incomprehensible and pointless.
Hah! I've got a better story of mistaken identity!
Years ago, while attending the University of Ottawa, I asked for some help from a librarian. She looked me up and down and, without missing a beat, asked me (in what appeared to be all seriousness), "Are you a student or faculty?"
At the time, I habitually wore tight black jeans, t-shirts, motorcycle boots, a fringed leather jacket covered with a black denim vest sporting numerous heavy metal pins and having the cover for Venom's "Welcome to Hell" album on a big patch on the back. I also sported long hair, a goatee, and mustache.
(This 41-year old also thought you were a bit younger than you wrote.)
Must've been the U of O English dept. she was thinking about.
I hear they're all complete degenerates.
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