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Growing Up in The 1990s

Hallo Spaceboy

Memories surrounding 1. Outside

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I missed a lot growing up. Having to admit to myself that one of my first experiences of seeing David Bowie was in reruns of Saturday Night Live and Labyrinth are hard to swallow. Seeing Tin Machine on SNL was a highlight in 1991 with Macaulay Culkin and was also eye-opening. Was this guy just in a rock band at this stage in his career? Who were we to question it, was the real question.

[embed]Tin Machine — Baby Universal (SNL) 1991

This isn’t about that. I grew into the Bowie fan I am now by listening to the greats, reading history, and dancing in the kitchen. I learned to sing All the Young Dudes, croon Little China Girl, and dance to Young Americans like any kid in the 1980s and 90s like any kid in the South. In the quiet of my room so my parents didn’t suspect I was a homosexual…

When 1. Outside released, I had to hide the damn thing for fear my Christian parents would throw it out. I’ve got stories to tell about all the things they burned and destroyed, but we’ve got a good relationship now. I don’t want to dwell. I will tell this short story and skip the review.

As a Sagittarian, I avoid authority as much as possible. In other words, I do whatever the fuck I want most of the time and never bring it up when it comes to petty things like buying records or comic books. Art is art. Splurging for this stuff now at forty-five seems silly, but I digress.

So, in the fall of 1995, when 1. Outside released, I was at the mall buying it after school. I remember the older lady behind the counter scoffing and saying, “He’s not as good as he used to be, but whatever. He’s sold out and went Industrial like everyone else.” That information made the purchase that much easier. Is Bowie trying to be Nine Inch Nails? You would have thought that until you listened to his earlier Berlin days and found that it was Trent Reznor trying to be Bowie. The compact disc must have spun millions and millions of times on the way to school every morning. One day, my father had to drive me because my inspection went out, and my mother took my truck in because she was off of work, and I was stuck at school. She found the damn thing but instead of going the old-fashioned route of breaking it and throwing it away and telling me after the fact, she brought it to the school and had an intervention with me and the school principal. Oh, did I tell you my parents sent me exclusively to a Christian school? Not just any Christian School, but one of those Church of God types.

I was in English class when I was called to the office. I hadn’t done anything. What was the problem? As I arrived at the front office, I saw my mother with an ashamed look. She was positively full of disbelief. What has her son gotten into? What had I done?

The principal or should I say, Pastor, because he was, called us into the office. I sat in the chair beside my mother and waited to find out what my crime was and if I was bound for punishment. To my chagrin, the pastor pulled out my copy of 1. Outside and dropped it on his desk.

I exclaimed; “I have that record. It’s so good. I can’t believe you like him too.”

Well, church, let me tell you, that was not the best way out of that situation.

[embed]My Spotify

The Pastor, we’ll call him Pastor Dans to save his identity… He wasn’t surprised in the slightest that I liked him. He told me he was also a Bowie fan growing up but then he found out, he was a homosexual and told me I should flee from evil. I looked at my mother with an, ‘I’ll never forgive you for this,’ look and explained he had been married to Iman since 1992 and he was married to Mary Angela Barnett in the 1970s and she’d helped him create his Ziggy Stardust alter ego.

Well, church, the Pastor knew all about Ziggy Stardust and that did not help my argument.

It was like Pastor Dans was now the resident expert on all things Bowie referencing his past as an alien, which was untrue unless you’re just bigoted to folks from Brixton. Bowie was a Nazi! That was the first time I’d heard that one. He certainly looked like a Nazi during his cocaine-rampant Berlin era.

In 1993 Bowie said to NME, his interest in Nazis came from his idea that they came for the Holy Grail in Glastonbury. They weren’t out collecting Jews in Concentration camps and the complete oppression of different races completely evaded my extraordinary fucked-up nature at that particular time.

Pastor Dans office seemed more like oppression from a music nazi. If I could have said that without grounding, I would have.

ORGIES!

There were orgies at his concerts. My face got cramped thinking about how I had expected there to be orgies at all rock and roll shows, and how could this be any different. How uncool would David Bowie be if he didn’t have orgies?

BISEXUAL!!!

I had an idea. You don’t get that close to Mick Jagger and expect nothing to go on under the sheets or over the pants.

Occultist!

Again, this wouldn’t have shocked me. I was surprised he didn’t bring up the keeping jars of urine and excrement up. Wait a second.

Keeping Jars of Urine and Excrement!!!

😑😑😑

Rampant drug use!

Also like… yeah.

Needless to say, I got out of there without a grounding. I didn’t get to keep that CD, but I did get back to the record store in time to get another cardboard cover. In later years, they changed it to a hard plastic case.

Ryder from my series Ring Light District is headed to London, and so am I! I finally got my passport and ticket. I’ll be there from the end of February until the 9th. I’m expecting big things as I have plans to write a Ring Light District European vacation circa 2003. If you’re reading that right, this is before Blair and Ryder meet…

But that’s not all! I’ll also write a daily travel and food blog at the Agency called London Bound: An American Chasing Foxes.

Read Child of God and help me decide the title of the next series.

[embed]Child Of God A Hundo for Vellichormedium.com

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