Queen Bitch: John Cameron Mitchell Sings David Bowie (3*)

As soon as I heard that John Cameron Mitchell--of Hedwig fame, but also the star of Larry Kramer's second AIDS play, the less successful one--I couldn't wait to score a ticket.  If anyone could do justice to my rock lodestar, it would be he, who, like me, was an Army brat born in El Paso!  As an added bonus, Mithcell would stage his tribute concert, "Queen Bitch," at the Perelman Center for the Performing Arts.

Alas, the year-old venue exceeded expectations, the performance barely met them.  It began with a sly joke:  an Aladdin Sane lightning bolt, which doubled as a microphone, carried to the stage by Amber Martin as if she were holding aloft the Statue of Liberty's torch.  I knew we were in for an evening of "deep cuts" when the very tight band struck up "Station to Station," a dimly recalled album title song, as Mitchell stomped onto the stage with a WWII parachute billowing behind a costume that seemed more transgender Cleopatra than "straight faggot" Bowie (Mitchell's own politically incorrect, if apt description of him and Lou Reed).  

As long as Mitchell stuck to Bowie's campier numbers ("Time," "Sweet Thing/Candidate" & "Queen Bitch") he did fine.  His knowledgeable and amusing (if occasionally self-aggrandizing) commentary almost compensated for the inadequacy of his high-range vocals, especially on the seminal "Rock 'n Roll Suicide," surely the best album-closer ever.

But he seriously miscalculated in giving Martin "Ziggy Stardust" to cover after her equally "fierce" and grating performance of "Fame" although the audience cheered both.  Perhaps I'm too much of a purist or maybe Mitchell's generous cult outnumbered Bowie's.  In any case, her interludes gave his voice and his slithering but aging body--which repeatedly engaged band members in the master's queer-baiting sexual pantomimes--a chance to rest, as did his continued and unnecessary interactions with a ten-year old Bowie fan in a box seat with his mother.

All criticism aside, Mitchell's superb and stunningly relevant performance of "I'm Afraid of Americans" proved that he really gets Bowie and his timelessness.  As an aficionado of Bowie's early recordings, Mitchell no doubt recognizes the irony of making one of the Thin White Duke's lesser appreciated works--a late-career collab with Trent Reznor--his own for a night.

The Folly Chariot's First Field Trip

I bought a Muskmobile (aka Tesla Model Y) after hemming and hawing for almost a year. Our new chariot will live at the Folly.  Herr Cucaracha taught me that owning a car in Manhattan is more headache than convenience, and it's only going to get more expensive with the imminence of congestion parking.

 

Up-to-four-passengers was a luxury only provided by Folly rental cars in the past so Chris and I picked up Paul and Linn in Boca en route to Miami.   We began our afternoon visit at the Holocaust Memorial.  None of us except me had seen it.

An engaging docent whose parents had survived the camps told us her father refused to paint all Germans with the Nazi brush.  She'd seen The Zone of Interest, too, and pointed to the little girl who hides apples for the prisoners as an example of humanity's capacity for kindness even under the most horrifying conditions. 

The nearby botanical garden offers relief from the grimness of the memorial.

We're in an ongoing discussion at the Folly about the meaning of "meta."  I think this mural qualifies as it X-rays the often illegal activity that first put Wynwood on the art map in 2009.

We parked just below Frida Kahlo's roller-painted visage while the friendly and talented artist worked to finish it.  He laughed when I pleaded with him not to get red paint on my new car.  Chris and I visited Kahlo's home on our trip to Mexico City last year.

Blank spaces are as rare as icebergs in the ever-gentrifying neighborhood, which I've visited almost annually since 2017.

Introducing Paul and Linn to the Wynwood mixed up my standard tour (which includes artisanal popsicles at Cielito and kosher babka at Zak the Baker, unfortunately closed on Saturdays).  They wanted to check out Walt Grace Vintage which specializes in strings and wheels.  Very cool.

Colorful guitar straps and books were on sale, too.

If anyone ever sculpts a rock Mt. Rushmore, Bowie and Lennon better be included.

Wynwood Walls, the pioneering art space that started it all, now charges $12 admission.  It may no longer be as edgy but it's just as much fun.  Too bad New York City didn't find a way to preserve 5 Pointz.

I love this fantastic take on Florida's flora and fauna.  Is that a unicorn or a roseate spoonbill?

We Work opened this space just about the time the company imploded.  I'd wager it's one of the bankrupt company's most valuable assets.  Hipsters only have to cross the street for delicious babka.

BTW, the Folly Chariot made it to Miami and back (~150 miles) with less than an 80% charge.  So far, home plugging it in at home has been more than adequate.

Lou Reed: Caught Between The Twisted Stars

Lou Reed was SO New York when I was a sophomore at Columbia that posters advertised Transformer, his seminal solo album, in the subway.  Mick Rock took the cover photo, manipulated here even more than it was there.

I bought the album mostly for "Walk on the Wild Side" and the opportunity to study the back cover, surely the most explicit presentation of the gender bending pioneered by Mick Jagger and David Bowie.  For a kid still confused about his sexuality, it was radical!  To paraphrase Mae West: "Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?"

Here's an iconic period photo (also by Mick Rock) of Lou with his glam pals, David Bowie and Iggy Pop wearing a T-Rex tee. Call me a fan boy for 'em all--my idolatry is wide, not deep.  It's hard to believe Iggy is the last one standing.  Bowie produced Transformer--you  just know he was responsible for best pop music chorus ever--and played sax on "Walk."  

Lou's reserved masculinity appealed to me almost as much as Iggy's wild child.  It's hard to look at this shot, again by Mick Rock (glam's official photographer), and not think "Everything old is new again."

Unlike most discriminating rock 'n roll fans of my time, I did not pretend to revere the Velvet Underground despite its deep connection with Andy Warhol.  The muddiness of the first recording, the one with Andy's banana art, alienated me.  I'm not even sure I realized Lou had written most of the songs on Rock 'n Roll Animal, still my all-time favorite live album, while a member of the Underground.

"Caught Between The Twisted Stars," an exhibit at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center stimulated all this reverie about Lou.  The library acquired his archives in 2017.  That would have been inconceivable to me when I worked there, pretty much at the height of Lou's fame.  If you live long enough, astonishment goes with the territory.  Another case in point: Susan Boyle, Lou's least likely cover artist, turning "Perfect Day," (my second favorite song from Transformer) into a choral hit nearly 40 years after he composed it.  Unbelievably, his song survived the schmalz treatment perhaps because it always was a bit treacly.

Here's an excerpt from the film Andy directed about the Velvet Underground that features Lou, Nico and Nico's son.  

Lou and bandmate John Cale paid tribute to Andy with "Songs for Drella," several years after his death.  The two musicians hadn't worked together since Cale left the Velvet Underground in 1969.

Although Lou never recorded another song as popular as "Walk on the Wild Side" (released exactly half-a-century ago on November 24) he kept churning out one (mostly) transgressive classic after another:  "Kicks," "Coney Island Baby," "Rock 'n Roll Heart," "Temporary Thing," "Street Hassle" and "I Wanna Be Black" which you probably aren't supposed to like any more. Of course there were some bombs, too, including Berlin, an autobiographical rock opera about a couple's drug addiction, and the unlistenable Metal Machine Music.  Like many fans, I eventually came around to the former although not before I gave my copy away.   Damnit!

Live performances at the Bottom Line, where I took the photo below in 1977, and the Academy of Music suggested that his gender bending was more au courant than characteristic.  He rocked with New York attitude.  Lester Bangs, the rock critic immortalized in Almost Famous, wrote:  He fixes you with that rusty bug-eye, he creaks and croaks and lies in your face, and you're  helpless.

Photo by Jeffrey Hon

Dion, another legendary New York City performer, drew this caricature of Lou.

I kept up with Lou's solo career until 1983.  Now that he was married and in recovery, sex, drugs and rock 'n roll were behind him.  So was I, after The Blue Mask, his most critically acclaimed recording.  The music had lost its punch.  I gave up entirely with the release of Legendary Hearts, which I bought mostly because it featured this motorcycle helmet on the cover.

 

My copy is probably still as pristine as the library's because I played it only once or twice.

Lou jotted down his lyrics in small notebooks.

I looked for my favorite singalong, from "Rock 'n Roll Heart," to no avail.

I don't like opera and I don't like ballet

And New Wave French movies, they just drive me away

I guess I'm just dumb, 'cause I know that I ain't smart

But deep down inside, I got a rock 'n' roll heart

Yeah-yeah-yeah, deep down inside I got a rock 'n' roll heart

This photo of Lou with Václav Havel adds more live-long-enough astonishment.  How many rock 'n roll bands have had political revolutions named after them?  Havel told Reed "I am [Czech] president because of you."  In 1989 Havel led the Velvet Revolution.  It peacefully toppled the Soviet government which had banned rock 'n roll, including the Velvet Underground, during its occupation.  

Lou's marriage to Laurie Anderson in 2009 enhanced the "downtown" credibility of both artists.  A year later they served as the grand marshals of Coney Island Mermaid Parade along with Lola Belle, their pooch.

When Lou died, Laurie writes in the exhibition hand-out, he left everything to me.  It was overwhelming and it took me a while to imagine what to do with it.  The process took years but the collection of Lou's public life has finally entered the New York Public Library.

I'm so happy!  First, because Lou is a legendary New Yorker and his work belongs to this city.  And second because the library is free and public.  This is not a white gloves collection.  Anyone can come in and look and listen to his life's work.

Hear ye, hear ye!  It's comforting to think that the future generations always will have access to "New York Telephone Conversation," a throwaway song from Transformer that captures one of the fundamental pleasures of mid 20th-century life:

I was sleeping, gently napping, when I heard the phone

Who is on the other end talking, am I even home?

Did you see what she did to him, did you hear what they said?

Just a New York conversation rattling in my head

Ooh my, and what shall we wear, ooh my, and who really cares?

Just a New York conversation, gossip all of the time

"Did you hear who did what to whom?", happens all the time

Who has touched and who has dabbled, here in the city of shows

Openings, closings, bad rap party, everybody knows

Ooh, how sad and why do we call, ooh I'm glad to hear from you all

I am calling, yes I'm calling just to speak to you

For I know this night will kill me, if I can't be with you

If I can't be with you

In my imagination, Andy was usually on the other end, and their conversations inspired "Walk on the Wild Side." Here in the city of shows.

David Bowie Is . . .

A chance for a couple of tatted, Medicare-eligible fans to act silly at the Brooklyn Museum.

Better than pulling down my pants and showing off the lightning bolt I got nearly 20 years ago on my left hip, I suppose.  It graces the exhibition's orange catalog cover, too.  Props go to Pierre La Roche, Bowie's make-up artist.

I snapped a few forbidden photos of the sold-out exhibit, but nothing can catch the frisson of reading the handwritten lyrics for several of his greatest songs.  

My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare.

Lindsay Kemp influenced Bowie long before he became famous.  I caught his production of "Flowers, a Pantomime for Jean Genet," in London in 1975.

Bowie's incredible outfits deserve the attention they get here.  He wore this one on Saturday Night Live in 1979 when Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias carried him on stage to perform "The Man Who Sold The World."  You kids probably think that's a Nirvana song.  Full disclosure:  I like Kurt's unplugged version better, too.  AND it introduced Bowie to a new generation.

A joyful television performance accompanies his Starman costume.  His musical rapport with Mick Ronson, the man behind the greatest guitar solo of all time, is incredible, gay baiting aside.  

How high were the Thin White Duke's platform heels?  At least as high as Bowie during his Berlin years!  There's even a photo of his coke spoon.  No doubt it helped keep the weight off.

Can you believe Aladdin Sane had a 26 1/2" waist?

An enormous, darkened gallery features concert performances of songs like "Rock 'n Roll Suicide," "Rebel, Rebel" and "Heroes."

I saw Bowie perform live twice, on the "Diamond Dogs" tour in 1974, the summer before my senior year at Columbia, and on the "Reality" tour shortly after my 50th birthday in 2003 (thanks, Jerry!).  He's given me a lifetime of pleasure.  Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane remain three of my all-time favorite recordings, the trifecta of perfect albums.  And side one of Diamond Dogs is pretty damn fine, too.

It's wonderful to see how influential pop music's most indelible shape-shifter has become in the years since Tom and I became part of his early American audience.  Check out this "Periodic Table of Bowie." It closes a truly fabulous retrospective of his unparalleled career.

May He rest in peace.

Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth
You pull on your finger, then another finger, then cigarette
The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget
Oh, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide
You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it
And the clock waits so patiently on your song
You walk past a cafe, but you don't eat when you've lived too long
Oh, no, no, no, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide
Chev brakes are snarling as you stumble across the road
But the day breaks instead, so you hurry home
Don't let the sun blast your shadow
Don't let the milk float ride your mind
You're so natural, religiously unkind
Oh no, love, you're not alone
You're watching yourself, but you're too unfair
You got your head all tangled up, but if I could only make you care
Oh no, love, you're not alone
No matter what or who you've been
No matter when or where you've seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I've had my share, I'll help you with the pain
You're not alone
Just turn on with me, and you're not alone
Let's turn on and be not alone
Gimme your hands, 'cause you're wonderful
Gimme your hands, 'cause you're wonderful
Oh, gimme your hands