Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

Bowie-ism. I displayed his compact discs
prominently on my bookshelf, returning often to
Young Americans —for sex; Station to Station —for
drugs; “Sorrow” off Pin Ups —when crushed out or
sad; Ziggy —for when my school was insane and
my work was down the drain; and Diamond Dogs —
for sex and drugs and being crushed out and sad.
I soon found an accomplice in a student who
called herself Flora and later Ufloria. She was from
the West Coast, I believe, but mostly she just
appeared without much warning, in Manhattan or
Boston or Vermont, a vagabond, holding a small,
portable boom box and, inevitably, a bag of pot.
She later had a loose affiliation with the band the
Brian Jonestown Massacre, but it seems like
everyone I met at that time did as well. Bennington
was the kind of place where you would hear people
stomping around the lawn with earphones on,
screaming along to the music playing in their
heads. There was a Swiss kid named Michael or
Michel who shouted Prince lyrics at God. You could
hear him from a hundred yards, thanks to the echo
in the valley: “People call me rude! / I wish we all
were nude!” Others sang arias from their window.
Ufloria sang Bowie, which is why I tracked her down.
That and the rumor of her having pot. I was too shy
to sing outdoors, or anywhere else, even with the
pot, so I just nodded in agreement as she warbled.
As it’s fairly easy, when sequestered in the
mountains, to pretend it’s any era you like, we opted