All's well; twentieth century dies.

You may have noticed that this blog went on a wee hiatus over the past few weeks. Or maybe you haven't. Regardless. I had a life thing happen that demanded my full attention. Can't exactly say it's over or done, but I am anxious to return to some sort of normalcy, and this post is just the ticket to that, I think. There will be no fantastic voyage or brilliant adventure today. Just a round-up of the myriad miscellaneous "other" endeavours that Bowie got up to in the 80's and 90's.

I apologize in advance if my mind wanders as I write this. I'm sort of a space cadet at the moment, with an approximate 10:1 ratio of zoning out versus time spent on earth. Also, because you have access to Wikipedia and IMDb too, this post will feature what I think are the highlights. Feel free to consult those sources yourself for the exhaustive collection of works.

Broadway, baby

So by 1980, David Bowie had pretty well established that he had a decent set of acting chops. Mmm, chops. Wait... what? Oh yeah. Bowie took on the role of John Merrick in the Broadway production of The Elephant Man, and apparently nailed it, earning some high praise from critics and audiences. The cool thing about Bernard Pomerance's play is that the actor playing Merrick doesn't wear any makeup or prosthetics to illustrate his disfigurement -- the audience is meant to imagine his appearance by the way in which the actor moves and speaks, and by other characters' reactions to him. That is a pretty avant garde approach to theatrics, which I think is probably what attracted Bowie to the role.

It would have been so cool to see him perform on a Broadway stage. Alas, I was but a small child at the time. Luckily, the play has made it back to Broadway, and I'm super excited to be heading to New York in January to see Bradley Cooper as John Merrick! Mmm, Bradley Cooper... oh, shit. Sorry.

Stop, collaborate and listen

For the first time in his career, in the early 80's Bowie took a few years off from recording his own music to focus on acting and collaborating with other artists. The story goes that in 1981, he happened to be in the neighbourhood when Queen were recording their album Hot Space, and as a result ended up singing on a track that evolved from a previous jam session with the band. That track came to be known as Under Pressure.

Yeah, that's the official video, which is meh. So here is the live performance of the song by Bowie and Annie Lennox at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992, which is way more awesome to behold.

That same year, songs from his Berlin period were used as the backdrop to the German film Christiane F., which I blogged about here.

In 1982-83, Bowie exercised his aforementioned acting chops in a BBC television production of Bertolt Brecht's Baal, a vampire movie called The Hunger, and a Japanese-American film project entitled Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, which I have to say is probably my favourite of Bowie's film roles that I've seen thus far.

All we need is music

This has nothing to do with anything: I work with a girl who knows shockingly little about pop culture. Like, she grew up in Toronto in the 80's and 90's and yet just the other day found out that there is a song called Dude Looks Like a Lady, and that Led Zeppelin isn't the name of a guy. Astonishing, right? So one day we were having a Skype conversation that went thusly:

She: I'm listening to a playlist on Songza called 80's and 90's Guilty Pleasures.

Me: That sounds super fun!

She: It is! I just finished listening to a song called No Rain by this band Blind Melon.

Me: I love that song! But I'm surprised it's considered a guilty pleasure.  I always thought that one was a classic that stood the test of time.

She: Yeah! Like Cotton Eye Joe!

She's not fucking with me. I need to make that absolutely clear. That facepalm-worthy conversation is just one among many in which I've learned that apparently Lionel Richie is a reggae artist, there is a band called Fine Young Cannibals (gasp! noway!), and the lyric "Ziggy played guitar" is from Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams. Am I being smug? Okay maybe a little, I admit it. But she tells me I know so much about music and I haven't the heart to tell her I only know the stuff that everybody knows.

Anyway, around the same time the Cotton Eye Joe incident occurred, this was brought to my attention.

And I'm only showing you that because A) I have the concentration of a squirrel on meth right now, and B) you're already familiar with the original. You've seen it, right? Please tell me you've seen it.

Things that happened in 1986

Bowie had a small role in the 1986 movie Absolute Beginners. It's a British rock musical that apparently didn't do very well commercially. Bowie plays an advertising executive named Vendice Partners. I haven't seen it in its entirety, but I did watch the clips showcasing Bowie's brief appearances, and they are the reason why I have no intention of watching the rest of the movie. But in case you want to satisfy your curiosity, here is his musical number.

Of course, 1986 also gave us Labyrinth and its Bowie-begotten soundtrack. I'm not going to discuss Labyrinth now, because I already did that here. Also, my cat is walking across the keyboard which makes it really hard to type.

Acting chops, smothered in mint jelly

I'm a bad Bowie fan. No really, I am. While I've stayed the course musically, I've let my Bowie film-watching fall by the wayside. I mean, I'm pretty sure I've seen The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), but by "seen", what I mean is that it was on in the background on Easter at a family gathering  several years ago and I wasn't really watching it. So it doesn't count. So I'm not just a bad Bowie fan, I'm a bad movie fan, too. Lock me up.

Here he is as Pontias Pilate:

You know what else I haven't seen? Fire Walk with Me (1992). Which also makes me a bad Twin Peaks fan.  Bowie played FBI Agent Philip Jeffries, American accent and all. And yeah, this is a bizarre clip but that's okay because Twin Peaks.

Trapped in the flipside

I remember renting Cool World and watching it at my boyfriend's house back in high school circa 1992. I also remember having this completely unfounded expectation that it was going to be a super cool, Brad Pitt-ified  version of Kidd Video (my favourite Saturday morning cartoon when I was a youngling), and then it really wasn't like that at all. So disappointing. Anyway, the song Bowie did for the movie's soundtrack lives up to the first two words of its title. I love its Black Tie, White Noise period vibe.

***Several hours later***

Thank the stars I live in a world where there is a thing called the Internet which has a thing called YouTube on it that lets you watch Saturday morning cartoons from your childhood. Now THAT was a trip to the flipside. Where was I? Oh, right.

Andy Warhol doesn't like beer. WTF, Andy?

I like Andy Warhol. Maybe not so much as a person, but I sure dig his art. Everything I know about Andy Warhol as a person I learned from watching shows in which other people are playing him as a character. So really all I have to compare Bowie's interpretation of him to is Guy Pearce's interpretation in Factory Girl, and Tom Meeten's intepretation of him in NoelFielding's Luxury Comedy (which, as awesome as it is, probably doesn't count because he's a housekeeping Andy Warhol robot). Bowie actually knew Warhol, so it's entirely possible that his interpretation in the 1996 film Basquiat (about the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat) is the most authentic.

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Yes, I can hear you, Clem Fandango.

Well, darlings... I've spared just about all the energy and focus (what focus?) I have for today. Major life-event triggered ADD is tolerable enough on the weekend but tomorrow I go back to work. Fingers crossed this post has helped me to try and get my brain back into thinking about non major life-event things. I'll try to be back again in two weeks' time with a new twenty-first century Bowie adventure. So tune in next time: Same Strong Bad time, same Strong Bad channel.