Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

And be the lintel blest
And bless the hearth and bless the
board
And bless each place of rest—
And bless the crystal windowpane that
lets the starlight in
And bless each door that opens wide,
to stranger as to kin
This verse had on me the effect of a physical
chill, so insistently did it seem the kind of “ironic”
detail the reporters would seize upon, the
morning the bodies were found. In my
neighborhood in California we did bless the
door that opened wide to stranger as to kin.
Paul and Tommy Scott Ferguson were the
strangers at Ramon Novarro’s door, up on
Laurel Canyon. Charles Manson was the
stranger at Rosemary and Leno LaBianca’s
door, over in Los Feliz.
Too much money, too many drugs, too many
powerful people and far too many disenfranchised
angry spurned poor people around them. When I
am in L.A. on assignment, and not at the Chateau
Marmont or the Sunset Marquis, where the sheer
cost of the room is almost enough to make me feel
safe, I double-check that the door is locked. The
nights in those hills are so dark. Add to that
rampant creepiness enough Bolivian marching
powder to stroke out a Himalayan yak, and your