Category: David Bowie

You belong in a boat out at sea

You belong among the wildflowers
You belong in a boat out at sea
Sail away, kill off the hours
You belong somewhere you feel free

– Wildflowers, Tom Petty

Once I met a bloke who lived on a boat named after a Tom Petty song.

His name was Paddy and hers was Wildflower and they must have made an impression because nine years later they are still in my life.

Wildflower the boat

Wildflowers – the song

Nine years later and the Captain and I were privileged enough to  see the man himself in concert. We had no idea it would be our last opportunity.

I’d always quite liked Tom Petty, but he certainly played a bigger part in my life after I met Paddy. The first time he came over to my house I tried to impress him with a best of Tom Petty CD casually playing in the background (smoooooooth…)

He still gives me shit about that.

Petty for Paddy is like Bowie for me – a massive part of his life for most of his life. He has a Petty lyric for just about every situation. He’s dealing with the loss of his idol in a typical Kiwi bloke fashion, but I can tell he is hurting. We both are. We have so many memories wrapped up in TP. In the end even my cat (the late, great Mr Pies) was a fan.

The best of those memories was earlier this year when we actually got to see a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concert.

Paddy was turning 50 and our initial plan was to head to Hawaii – Hawaii Five-0 styles. Our plans changed pretty quickly though when I spotted on TP’s official Instagram that he was touring the United States at the same time we were going to be over there. My fuzzy American geography decided that our best bet was to detour via Texas, and so the adventure began.

When tickets went on sale I found myself at 4am mashing keys and refreshing my browser in a bid to secure our spot. I was mildly hungover after a few drinks to celebrate the end of the working year and all the usual things went wrong. The internet dropped out, my computer froze, the website got confused because I was in New Zealand trying to buy tickets for a concert in the United States.

But I got there in the end, waking Paddy up to crow about my success. (He muttered something unintelligible and went back to sleep.)

TP didn’t disappoint – the distance we traveled, the adventures to get there – the frisking Paddy got at the airport trying to leave Hawaii (a story for another day) were all worth it. The man still had it. It was an absolutely amazing concert and you could tell he was loving every minute of performing.

The crowd were loving it too – quite a bit judging by the funny smelling cloud of smoke that appeared over the stadium when he played Last Dance with Mary Jane.

It was amazing and we were both so freaking happy (and not because of the funny smelling smoke).

And to make the night even more perfect, out of all of his massive back catalogue, what did he play? Wildflowers.

Paddy probably won’t admit it, but it was quite an emotional moment.

Here’s my wonky recording – ignore the wobbles, the sound is good!

Margarita slushie – essential Texan concert fuel
Pre concert excite! (Yes Paddy is wearing a laser kiwi T shirt. NZ represent!)
The man himself
Waving celphones is the new waving cigarette lighters
Post TP glow – and awesome T shirts!

Paddy says losing Tom would have been so much worse if he had never got to see him play. It’s like the best thing and the worst thing happened in the same year. I’m so sad, but happy at the same time that I could help make this happen for him.

I’ll leave you with another favourite of Paddy’s from the 2010 Mojo album

I know that look that’s on your face
But there’s somethin’ lucky about this place
And there’s somethin’ good comin’
For you and me
Somethin’ good comin’
There has to be

– Something Good Coming – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

My Metal Guru

For Joel Flynn

One thing I have learned the hard way this past week is the importance of letting people who are special to you know they are special.
If someone is fucking wonderful tell them they are fucking wonderful, on a regular basis. If you admire the hell out of them, tell them – because you never know when the window to do so will close.

This weekend I said goodbye to a friend who touched my life, a friend who I have kept in touch with via Facebook for years but didn’t make the time to see enough of when I visited home.

I have so many friends like that.

When we met I was about 17 or 18 and I was utterly in awe of his style. He was a vision in glitter and black velvet – looking like a sort of man-pixie cross between John Lennon, Robert Plant and Marc Bolan.

I didn’t know who Marc Bolan was at the time but he sure taught me!

I pinched this from your Facebook page Joel. I hope that's okay. I adore it!
I pinched this from your Facebook page Joel. I hope that’s okay. I adore it!

Joel was a few years older than me and as far as I was concerned he was a music guru. He was responsible for my early Bowie education. I was in the throes of a fledgling Bowie obsession. My gateway drug was the Labyrinth soundtrack, I had pinched a Best Of CD from my Mum, loved Ziggy and Aladdin Sane, but that was where my knowledge floundered. Joel introduced me to Hunky Dory and The Man Who Sold the World and opened a whole new chapter.

Shades of Hunky Dory
Shades of Hunky Dory

He told me Width of A Circle (a 9 minute opus with lots of guitar noodling) was one of his favourites. I thought he was such a dude that I went home I got my copy of The Man Who Sold The World (a cassette tape at that point) and memorised all the lyrics to that song so I would be able to sing it if he played it. Sure enough, he cranked it up at a party at his house and I was able to jump around the lounge with him singing it word for word. I felt like the coolest person in the world.

Width of A Circle was the song I picked for his memorial.

It wasn’t just the music though. When you were in a room with Joel, even if there were 50 other people there, it was like you were the only one in it. We met through my boyfriend at the time who was a good friend of his and I went from a friend’s girlfriend to a special person in my own right within seconds. As another friend said “Every time I saw you it felt as if you’d been waiting just for me to arrive.”

Seconds after this shot was taken bad karaoke began
Seconds after this shot was taken bad karaoke began
Always the center of the party
Always the center of the party

I started visiting on my own, outside parties. When I was super excited by discovering Velvet Underground, when I just wanted a bit of advice.

I have a clear memory of dropping in to his place when I was going through a bit of a bad patch. I was a ball of insecurities and quite down on myself. He made me a coffee and we just talked. He ended up telling me he thought of me as the Yoko Ono of Christchurch. At first I was outraged. I hadn’t broken up any bands had I? But then he explained it was because he thought I had my own unique style, that I didn’t care what others thought and he admired that. Coming from someone who I saw as a sort of guru that meant so much. It was a massive confidence boost and exactly what I needed at the time. Years later I still think about that conversation. I never told him. I wish I had.

When Facebook happened and he got back in touch I was super excited to feel that connection again. I promised myself I would visit him when I came home, that I would make an effort to catch with all my friends from that part of my life. But every year I would come home for Christmas, be knackered from work and just want to chill out at Mum and Dad’s. Each year I would promise myself the next visit I would be organised and catch up with people and each year it didn’t happen.

It seemed okay though, we all spoke to each other most days on Facebook. We all had our own lives and our own issues, but we could peek in and see what each other were up to. We could like and comment and emoticon. We still ‘saw’ each other.

But just because you ‘talk’ to people every day through social media doesn’t mean you know what is going on in their lives. Most people project the best versions of themselves to the world. I know I do. It sort of lulls you into a false sense of connection. It’s great, but it’s not 100% real. You may connect most days but before you know it a decade has gone by since you have been in the same room together.

It had been more than decade since I had seen a lot of the people I caught up with on Friday night, but we picked up where we left off. It almost felt like we had never been apart.

We met at the Christchurch Botanical gardens where we spent a lot of time back in the day. We each picked a song that reminded us of Joel and played them through an ipod speaker. It went from the sublime to the ridiculous. From Led Zeppelin’s Friends to 10 CC’s Dreadlock Holiday. The latter made me smile because it was picked by an ex-boyfriend (the same one who introduced me to Joel). He says it was because he dropped in to visit one day and found Joel playing it, which resulted in an argument that included the phrase “Shit like this is why Punk had to happen!” I can clearly see this happening in my head, and now it makes me giggle every time I hear that song.

Everyone had a story behind their song and each song was perfect in its own way. We threw flowers from each other’s gardens in the river and watched them drift away. Then we polluted it a little by throwing glitter (sorry environmentalists, I’m sure the ducks will only have psychedelic poos for a couple of days!) The glitter was perfect, and very Joel. Another friend of his swore he coated his sofa with the stuff on purpose just to piss people off.

It was universally agreed that we needed to make sure it wasn’t something shit that brought us together again. We have a reunion in the works for next year. I am determined to get in touch when I go home for Christmas.

These days we are so connected but also so isolated. Finding and getting in touch with people is so much easier but you need to make time to make the next step. To really see each other. I’m not saying we have to live in each other’s pockets but just that we need to actually see each other every now and again. Drop in and visit, pick up the phone. If you don’t like the phone drop them an email. Tell people you are thinking of them when you think of them, otherwise they will never know.

So to all my friends and family I haven’t seen for a while. It may take a bit but I am going to do my best to get in touch with you in some form. I think of you all a lot – when I read an article, when I hear someone say something, when a song comes on.

You all have a place somewhere in my heart and you always will have.

I love you.

I’ll leave you all with a playlist and the promise of a cheerier blog next time.

(Just a note I have noticed videos aren’t coming through in the blog emails so if you want to watch any of these then click through to the blog site)

Remembering Joel:

Friends – Led Zeppelin

Trippin – Push Push

The Slider – T Rex

Telephone Line – Electric Light Orchestra

Silence – The Tea Party

Dreadlock Holiday – 10cc

Dirty Work- Steely Dan

Mercedes Benz – Janis Joplin

Shake that Devil – Antony and the Johnsons

The Show Must Go On – Queen

Love is Like Oxygen – Sweet

Width of a Circle – David Bowie

My very own starboard marker

Six months ago I lost my idol. The man very much responsible for me being me. I was devastated at the time and so was much of the world. David Bowie was such a huge part of so many lives – it was impossible to believe that someone who was so brave, intelligent and downright magical could be gone.

I said everything I needed to say in a blog I wrote at the time but what I didn’t share was a tattoo I got two weeks after.

It didn’t seem right at the time, the internet was wall to wall Bowie and it just seemed a bit soon and a bit twee. I got it for me, it was part of my grieving process and I wasn’t ready to share it with the world.

It all just sort of came together. The idea popped into my head fully formed while I was talking to my Mum on the phone. I wanted the black star from his final goodbye album, but that on its own was too dark for me.

Blackstar

Then the Aladdin Sane lightning bolt flashed through my mind, cutting across the star.

as_front_300k

Aladdin Sane

It represented everything that was sparkly and spiky and magical about him, that was it. That was my tattoo.

A friend of mine recommended a tattooist (Craigy at Union Tattoo) who just happened to have a cancellation, so what I was expecting to wait a while for happened within two weeks.

Tat (2)

(Unfortunately the only decent pic I have of it is the one taken just after it was done. Have you ever tried to photograph your own wrist?)

It’s only little but it’s perfect. It makes me sad, but it also makes me feel strong and I smile every time I look at it.

It also turns out to have a very practical purpose.

I wanted the design on my wrist but didn’t really think too much about which one. In the end I just went with the one I didn’t wear a watch or fitness tracker on. It wasn’t until I was doing pilates (yes I do pilates – I may not be particularly good at it but I do it!) and I was having my usual issues of working out left from right, that I suddenly thought – I can use my tattoo!

It turns out it’s on my right side – my starboard side. I suddenly had an epiphany – I have a star on my starboard side. I wrote a book called Which Way is Starboard Again? and Bowie has answered that question for me forever!

Next time I’m out sailing, if a boat is heading towards Bowie I’ll know to keep clear.

I also conducted my own nerdy celebration of Bowie on the six month anniversary by helping orchestrate an augmented reality tribute. Before there was Pokemon Go there was Ingress (and before that Geocaching) – both are GPS based games that get you out amongst public art and sculptures and places of significance. My Dad got me into both, being a retired airforce navigator and fascinated with that sort of stuff.

I won’t go into too much detail but basically two warring teams united to create a digital lightning bolt across Lyall Bay.

Bowie field

The details are here (you don’t have to understand the lingo – the pictures say it all.)

Bowie was always an early adopter of new technology – I like to think he’d get a kick out of it.

I’ll end on a quote from a book I have recently read – Simon Critchley’s On Bowie, which sums him up perfectly for me.

“Bowie has been my soundtrack. My constant, clandestine companion. In good times and bad. Mine and his.
What’s striking is that I don’t think I’m alone in this view. There is a world of people for whom Bowie was the being who permitted a powerful emotional connection and freed them to become some other kind of self, something freer, more queer, more honest, more open, more exciting…He was someone who made life a little less ordinary for an awfully long time.”

PS. SHAMELESS PRODUCT PLACEMENT! Which Way is Starboard Again? the book is on sale $19.99 for blog readers. Free postage within NZ

Oh no love, you’re not alone

I don’t want to write this. I don’t want to write this. I don’t want to write this.

If I write this it makes it real.

But if I don’t write it I feel like I will burst.

It’s ridiculous really, it’s not as though I knew the guy, but a huge part of my light and life has left this world.

David Bowie has been with me since he first mesmerised me in the Labyrinth when I was a kid (and caused me to force my parents to repeatedly hire it from the video store, though I knew it word for word.)

He was with me through my awkward teenage years – when I was at my most scared and isolated telling me I was ‘not alone’

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

As a young adult navigating the murky waters of mental illness at a time when nobody talked about it All the Madmen from The Man Who Sold the World was a two-fingered salute to the rest of the world. It was okay, he got it. It was our secret.

‘Cause I’d rather stay here
With all the madmen
Than perish with the sad men
Roaming free
And I’d rather play here
With all the madmen
For I’m quite content
They’re all as sane as me.

David Bowie taught me that it was okay to be different. He taught me to embrace it, to run with it and see where it led me. That if I wanted to dress in orange paisley dye my hair blue and do ridiculous stuff on stage I bloody well could. If I wanted to blast Aladdin Sane when everyone else wanted to be the Spice Girls then I should, and at maximum volume.

I was fascinated by his influences, I discovered new (and old) writers, new music and art.

He was, he is, my best friend. He taught me to be me.

I have never met the man before but he has been with me for my entire life. Through gleeful celebration and abject misery. He graduated university with me and held my hand through journalism school. He’s sailed across the South Pacific with me and celebrated the publication of my first book.

In a way he also helped develop my writing style.

Back in the days of dial-up internet that sounded like R2D2 in a blender I discovered a world much bigger than my own. In trying to navigate this exciting new place where you could easily talk to people on the other side of the globe I joined a mailing list (do those even exist anymore?) called BowieList where, through group emails I was able to banter with a bunch of intelligent, funny and eloquent people from all walks of life, with the connection of our mutual admiration of Mr Stardust. I really looked forward to those emails, spending quite a bit more time on the university computers than I needed to ‘study’.

I enjoyed and appreciated the way these people wrote, the way they made me smile. I magpied the hell out of them and discovered a wittier more confident version of myself in the process. I made friends with some wonderful people who, while we are not in touch as often now, I still think about a lot.

I graduated to other Bowie groups, The Man’s own website Bowienet and even a proto virtual reality chatroom with avatars (Bowie did everything first) and I think this is where I developed my conversational writing style. I have so much to thank him for.

I also very much associate David Bowie with my Mum. It was her ‘best of’ album that I loved (and nicked) that led me to discover him.

We were lucky enough to see him in concert when he came to Wellington for the 2004 Reality tour. It was the most amazing night of my life. I don’t think I have ever felt that high. We’d gotten seats right up the front (of course) but as soon as I heard his voice I screamed like a banshee and ran for the stage – poor Mum managed to grab the back of my shirt and go with me, narrowly avoiding being left in the dust.

We were right up the front. There was a barrier, a security guy and then my Main Man. We couldn’t have gotten any closer if we tried. Typical inhospitable Wellington it was hosing down with rain but, while the band stayed where it was safe and dry, Bowie was out on the apron prancing about, getting soaked and having to have towels regularly thrown to him. He dedicated Heroes to us for sticking it out in the rain, but he was the hero.

Mum snuck a disposable camera in and managed to sneak a couple of pics before we were stopped. That’s how I will always remember him, looking right at us with that spectacular smile

Bowie reality Welly

 

Just last year Mum and I took a girls trip to Melbourne to see the David Bowie Is exhibition and I am so glad we did. It was incredible, everything I hoped it would be. We had a wonderful time.

Mum Ziggy and I

Bowie bar 2

Bowie beep beep

Just yesterday (before I heard the news) I was blasting out his new album Blackstar, marveling at how he was still making such challenging, haunting yet gleeful music.  That he was still experimenting, still twisting and changing, still messing with our heads.

When my sister told me last night I couldn’t breathe, it was like all the air had been sucked out of the room. If it wasn’t for Paddy letting me blubber all over him like a trooper I probably would have had an anxiety attack then and there.

I had to get out of the boat, I put my headphones on and walked round the waterfront playing Blackstar and finding new meaning in the lyrics. I oscillated between feeling completely numb and sobbing to myself like an idiot.

But even then I wasn’t alone. He was singing to me. It sounds silly but it felt like he was holding my hand.

I didn’t want to write this, but I feel a bit better now I have. I am also really touched by the messages I have been getting from family and friends who know how big the part he played in my life really was. I love that my facebook and twitter feeds are filled with Bowie, I love that everyone has a song that is special to them and they are all different ones. Everyone has a different place and a time where he really spoke to them and that makes me smile.

This isn’t goodbye Mr Bowie, Mr Stardust, Mr Jones. You will continue to be the soundtrack to me life and so many others. You have shaped who I am and that is never going to change.

You left the world on a spectacular note, you played us right to the end you clever boy. Keep on creating wherever you are, you’ll keep on inspiring down here.

‘This way or no way
You know I’ll be free
Just like that bluebird
Now, ain’t that just like me?’ 

 

What a Canadian going to space can teach me about going to sea

I’ve just finished reading An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth – Colonel Chris Hadfield’s autobiography.

For those of you who don’t know Hadfield became a bit of a social media rock star after posting a series of amazing YouTube videos from the International Space Station – everything from scientific experiments and stunning space vistas  to how to brush your teeth in zero gravity.

Most importantly of all, he  recorded his own version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity – IN SPACE!

Being the Bowie freak I am this of course is what first brought him to my attention.

He popped up on my radar again when I was talking to a friend about how sailing scared the hell out of me but I still found myself doing it. He said he’d just finished reading a biography that he thought I’d really like and promptly handed me An Astronaut’s Guide to Life – what going to space taught me about ingenuity, determination and being prepared for anything.

My first thought when starting to read was ‘pssshh, overachiever! There’s no-one in the universe (s’cuse pun)  more utterly out of my league. My second thought was ‘hey, wait a minute! This guy thinks just like me!’

One of my particular skill sets is being terrified of everything (it doesn’t stop me doing things – but it can make them a lot more difficult). Paddy calls it catastrophising – put me in any situation and I will come up with the worst possible outcome, however improbable.

So you can imagine me astonishment when I read that Mr Overachiever Astronaut was actually scared of heights! It seemed about as logical as a person with anxiety issues floating offshore on a tin tub (sorry Wildflower!)

Hadfield did something I really admire, he harnessed his anxiety and made it work for him. He wrote about the power of negative thought and sweating the small stuff – and of course as an astronaut you have to sweat the small stuff to survive.

While nowhere near the same league he’d got me thinking – I’d never seen my negativity as having power before. When you think about it though it makes sense, as long as you actually know what to do if the worst happens.

In fact, during the one really scary experience I had on the boat (sorry – but I’m saving that for the book), I was actually able to handle things because I had a job to do and I knew how to do it. It’s the not knowing that turns you into a wreck.

Hadfield sums it up perfectly right here;

“In my experience, fear comes from not knowing what to expect and not feeling you have any control over what’s about to happen. When you feel helpless, you’re far more afraid than you would be if you knew all the facts. If you’re not sure what to be alarmed about, everything is alarming” (pg 52 – An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth)

That sentence propelled me right back to our first night out of sight of land,  the boat creaking and groaning as we punched  into the wind that insisted on blowing in the exact direction we wanted to sail in. It was a little uncomfortable, but the boat was sturdy and we were safe – all the same, I was freaking out.

The reason I was freaking out was simple. I didn’t know exactly what was going on. Wildflower was making creaking, straining, banging noises I had never heard her make before. Because I couldn’t be certain if they were good or bad, the catastrophiser in me immediately decided they must be all bad. In short, I didn’t know what to be alarmed about – so everything was alarming.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing. Taking Wildflower offshore for the first time was a massive undertaking. We had a limited time window to wind up our jobs and our lives and make sure the boat was ready, but we didn’t spend enough of that time making sure that we as people were ready.  Theoretically I was – I’d passed my Boatmasters exams, I knew the safety drill – but mentally I had no clue what I was letting myself in for. I didn’t know what I should or shouldn’t be scared of.

Paddy was then faced with the unenviable task of skippering the boat with the first mate was popping up and down like a meerkat on speed going ‘what was that?’ ‘is that noise normal?’ He lay down with me in the back cabin (one of the noisiest spots) and explained to me what each creak and groan was and that helped hugely – but that was one more task he shouldn’t have had to do.

What it taught us was that next time, along with the boat prep, there will have to be more people prep (at least for me) – and one of the things I am keen to do is an offshore survival course. The kind where you practice skills you more than likely are never going to need, where you actually deploy the life raft and bob about inside it in a swimming pool.

I already feel much better now I have actually fired off a flare and I would rather know what to do if things went to hell than have to rely on others to tell me what to do. I’m never going to be an all-singing, all-dancing, fix-it-at-sea woman – but I would like to be able to do something practical without losing my mind.

Paddy worries this focus on the negative will put me off, but I think the opposite. I think it will calm me to know I am as prepared as I can be.

Worrying is something I’m good at, so I might as well harness it.

And, as Hadfield says “Anticipating problems and figuring out how to solve them is actually the opposite of worrying: it’s productive. Likewise, coming up with a plan of action isn’t a waste of time if it gives you peace of mind. While its true that you may wind up being ready for something that never happens, if the stakes are at all high, it’s worth it.” (Pg 72 – An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth)

You have to be careful though, there is a balance when you are at sea. Sometimes immediately leaping into survival mode can actually decrease your chances of survival. The thing with a boat is, no matter how uncomfortable things get, often the safest place to be is on board. It’s counter-intuitive, but it really does take an awful lot to make a boat sink – and  if you cut yourself adrift on a life raft you are at the mercy of the elements. Nine times out of ten the safest thing you can do is stay on board as long as possible – the golden rule is that you should “always step up into your life raft”

A tragic example of this was the 1979  Fastnet race that got caught out in freak weather – it was the people who abandoned ship into their life rafts who were the ones who were injured or lost their lives and when the storm cleared the majority of the boats were still floating.

So I am going into this painfully aware of the balance but also with  a sense of confidence that I think this will work for me. So thank you Col. Hadfield  for helping me realise I can use my anxiety as a tool and that the power of negative thought could actually make me a better sailor.

PS: Note to my Mum – who I know is reading this: Stop freaking out. We will be taking a ridiculously safe and well-prepared boat at a safe time of year on an easy passage across the Pacific ocean – you have nothing to worry about (but I know you will because I know who the worry gene came from!) Love yoooouuu! xxx