I have made it no secret that I was a tween and a teen during that magical musical time known as the eighties. Back in my day, we had fabulous magazines like Teen Beat and Tiger Beat and Bop!. The sole purpose of these fine periodicals was to deliver glossy photos of hot young movie stars, hot young TV stars, and hot young musicians. The teenage girls into whose hands these hot young photos were delivered would immediately cut those images out and tack them to their walls. I was one of those girls. It seemed to be a required step in the puberty process.

I’m sure, if you’ve ever read this blog before, you can guess who was on my wall: Duran Duran, the cast of The Outsiders, more Duran Duran. But also Adam Ant, The Pet Shop Boys, and this funny British guy with crooked teeth.

Yes, that is David Bowie. Why is he holding a cat? Who knows? I didn't care. Keep in mind that I was still a tween. I loved my British pop stars, but I also loved kitties. I might have had this photo framed.

I’d love to tell you that I admired Bowie because of his voice: so instantly recognizable, yet ever-changing; or his expansive talents—actor, artist, space alien. But I was a young, hormonal girl. Here’s what I loved: his hair, his eyes, and his teeth. He was hot.

His hair, because it always looked perfectly spikily coiffed, something that (despite my best efforts with Dep gel and Aqua Net) I could never achieve. His eyes, because they were not only two different colors, but one pupil was permanently dilated, and thus endlessly fascinating. And his teeth, because they weren’t perfect. (I had never been self-conscious about my teeth until a dentist suggested I have my front uppers and lowers capped to straighten them out. I didn’t do it—up until that very moment, I had never given their crookedness a second thought—but now I am painfully aware of my jack-’o-lantern smile.) Famous people with imperfect teeth hold a special place in my heart (Ethan Hawke, I salute you). If they don’t care about their haphazard grins, why should I?

My point is, as a teenager, I thought David Bowie was handsome and sexy and enigmatic. 

Eventually, I got through puberty and grew up. And happily, as an adult, I found David Bowie to be brilliant and crazy and bizarre and beautiful.

David Bowie was always part of the backdrop as I aged. While I was agonizing over pimples and bad dates and bad marriages and a mortgage, he was singing and acting and reinventing himself over, and over, and over. And in every interview, every video, every movie he popped up in, I thought Hey, there’s my old friend, David Bowie! I love that guy! And once: Hey, what the—did he fix his teeth? How could he?

Waking up Monday morning to the news that David Bowie had left the proverbial building was saddening in a way I wasn’t prepared for. My old friend was gone. His absence was immediate and huge.

Except . . . it isn’t. I have a lot of Bowie on my iPhone, and played his music all week while driving or at my desk. I put on Basquiat Monday night and watched him play one of my other favorite artists, Andy Warhol. Social media and the online sites have been posting tributes all week to this amazing man. And even scrolling through some of my old blog posts, I found references to Bowie that I’d forgotten—my love of his duet with Bing Crosby, only because it’s David Bowie. My love of Labyrinth, even though, let’s be honest, it’s not the best movie in the world. References to “Space Oddity” and “Changes” occasionally made because I’d assumed everybody knew these songs and would get the reference.

I have one coworker that is as deep in mourning as I am over the loss of Ziggy Stardust. We started talking about how absolutely brilliant he was to release Blackstar so close to his death. His swan song has skyrocketed in sales this week, and there has been endless speculation and interpretation around the lyrics and videos he left us with.

“Typical Bowie,” my coworker said. “Leaving us all guessing and wanting more.”

This is true. Typical Bowie—in that he never did the typical or expected.

I’ll miss you, old friend. 

I’m off to put on my red shoes and dance the blues.    
__
This week from The Storyside:
Fabulous free fiction: "That Sounds Familiar" by Stacey Longo (hey, that's me!)
An overview of how to get your book written and published: "From Idea to Printed Page, Part 1" by Ursula Wong

Jason and I rent a lot of movies from the local library. Recently, we discovered the first season of the Smurfs cartoon hiding in the children's section. Being two mature adults with no children, we immediately decided to rent it. I'll chalk it up to a Gen-X nostalgia thing.
We were excited to revisit this favorite cartoon from our childhoods. There was Papa Smurf, Brainy Smurf, and Grouchy Smurf (my personal favorite). We sang along to the theme song (the overcomplicated "la,la, la-la-la-la" came back to us quickly) and tucked in for some quality entertainment.
I'll admit, I chuckled the first few times Grouchy said "I hate Smurfberries!" and "I hate gag gifts that blow up in my face!" I remembered why he was my favorite as a kid--I was a bit of a grouch myself. But after a while, it got a little predictable. Kind of a one-note joke, that Grouchy. I'm sure I found him hilarious when I was a child, especially since up until the age of 8, my only brush with real, honest-to-goodness humor was my cousin Lori, who had the amazing talent of being able to hang a spoon off of her nose. Still cracks me up to this day. But I digress. It turns out that Grouchy wasn't nearly as funny as I remembered.
The Smurfs were cute, for a while, but a few more things came back to me. Like how it was no wonder why Jason and I remembered the theme song, since the stupid Smurfs sang it about sixteen times during every episode. And how Smurfette's voice always reminded me of howling cats clawing a chalkboard. I seem to have forgotten what a little tart she was, toying with the Smurfs' emotions. (Even Papa Smurf was smitten with her, which makes him a dirty old Smurf.) Plus, I'd forgotten what an annoying suck-up Brainy Smurf was. And how stupid, if not borderline malicious, Jokey Smurf's tricks were. 
Jokey's malevolent explosive gifts were only the beginning. I quickly became alarmed at how cruel and violent the Smurfs were, particularly towards Gargamel and Azrael. (Did I say Grouchy Smurf was my favorite? I always loved Azrael as a kid, probably because he was a cat.) Sure, Gargamel was evil and always wanted to eat the Smurfs, but that doesn't give those little blue gremlins the right to try and murder the man and his cat. Within the first three episodes, Azrael was thrown from a tall tree, nearly roasted to death by a dragon, and, of course, had not one, but two presents from Jokey Smurf blow up in his face. It's all fun and games until the cat loses his whiskers, folks, and it happened no less than seventy times in the first season. Those Smurfs owed Azrael an apology and a whole lot of tuna.
I also realized that the show took a lot of liberties substituting the word "smurf" for regular words. At first, it seemed okay, even kind of cute. 
"That's smurf-tastic!"
"Have a smurfy day!"
"Let's get the smurf out of here!"

 Umm . . . what was that last one? 
Apparently, the writers of the show must have thought it was funny to substitute "smurf" for--dare I say it?--vulgarities. Throughout each 23-minute episode, expressions like "He really smurfed us!" and "What the smurf is that?" abounded. Sure, sometimes there were other words that weren't dirty that maybe they might have meant, but substituting "He really scared us!" instead of "He really smurfed us!" doesn't quite work after Gargamel throws a bunch of Smurfs in a cooking pot and sets it to boil. I call shenanigans!
By the time we finished The Smurfs: Season 1, I was feeling a little disillusioned. I didn't know whether to call PETA about the mistreatment of Azrael or call the library and tell them exactly what I thought of their smurfing video. Gone was the innocence of my younger days, when all was happy, innocent, and smurfy. I was left feeling empty, hollow, and totally smurfed.
I decided to make myself some hot chocolate and watch something more innocent, like a Disney movie. Because nothing bad could happen in The Fox and the Hound, right? Right?
Turns out, in the words of Grouchy Smurf, I hate The Fox and the Hound. I was better off with those filthy Smurfs.