brainsplotch

Sometime in 1983, David Bowie's Let's Dance album penetrated the hinterlands of Michigan's rural Thumb region and helped to change my life. The hipster cognoscenti may pooh-pooh  Let's Dance and dismiss it as Bowie's concession to commercialism, but to many of us growing up in small towns across America, the music and imagery of that record couldn't possibly be much more odd and otherwordly. So what folks in New York, London, and Los Angeles considered pop confectionery was a small town kid's ticket to a world he or she previously did not know existed. A gateway drug to a wider and wilder realm of experience. The greatest quality of Let's Dance was that it was commercial enough to make it into the living rooms of middle America, and it was just weird enough for us middle-class, white bread kids to turn us on to ideas, sounds, and visuals we had little (or no) idea existed outside of our boring little bubbles. It's so long ago that I was tur...

David Bowie and his music have been a part of my life for 33 years. I'm currently plugging away on a David Bowie commemorative blog post, that I hope to finally publish on this blog sometime this weekend. So stay tuned...

"Look up here, I'm in Heaven"--David Bowie, "Lazarus" (2016) I woke up this morning to the stunning news that David Bowie had died. I'm almost speechless. On Friday, Bowie turned 69 and I was in a celebratory mood, listening to Hunky Dory in the car while driving my son to a friend's house, then listening to Low in the kitchen on Saturday morning while making breakfast and putting groceries away. Yesterday morning, after dropping our sad, dead Christmas tree off at the township tree recycling location, I stopped by the local Best Buy on a whim to see if they had Bowie's new album Blackstar in stock. Sure enough they did, and though I do my best to do most of my music shopping at the local stores, I figured "I'm here, they have it, it's $9.99, let me just buy it now." I listened to part of the title track "Blackstar" and was pleased to hear how at this point in his career, Bowie simply follows (followed) his inst...

It's 11:30 PM on Saturday night and I'm plopped here on the couch watching the Pittsburgh Steelers try and blow their playoff game to Cincinnati Bengals. The Steelers took a 15-0 lead into the fourth quarter but have gone into a long, deep slumber in this quarter and now trail 16-15 with about a minute and 30 seconds left. (Update: the Bengals live up to their "Bungles" reputation and put the Steelers in field goal position on a stupid personal foul penalty. The Steelers oblige by nailing the field goal attempt and winning 18-16). So I received a FitBit for Christmas, and wowzers are those things addictive. I'm not sure if this was set arbitrarily, but FitBit has established a goal for me of 10,000 steps per day, which is approximately five miles. I have now broken the 10,000 step threshold five days in a row and any day that I DON'T hit the 10,000 mark will feel like a failure (and I know that sounds ridiculous). That's just my addictive personality for...