Bowie Pulls a Salinger, aka, Disappearing Act Under Our Very Eyes
Planet Earth is bluer— these days— and there’s nothing I can do, with Bowie nowhere to be seen. How did this all happen? Following his onstage heart attack during his 2004 Reality Tour in Germany, the Thin White Duke has made but a scant, highly select handful of appearances. A solid decade later, a whole wide world is realizing, in an inconsolably sobering way, that he’s pulled a J.D. Salinger. I ask myself, why does this keep happening with my truest of heroes?
Didn’t Bowie appear on a collective radar with “Space Oddity? And didn’t Salinger register most—particularly amongst the bookburners—with the iconic Catcher In The Rye? Sadly, didn’t the protagonist of either inescapably embraced phenomenon distinctly forewarn of this tendency—to pull their own plugs on society— within their own storyline? I’ve had to often explain that astronaut Major Tom chooses not to come back to Earth. What in the world does that mean? Well, it means, specifically, that he’s chosen to spin off into oblivion in his tin can. And whatever else could that mean but suicide amongst the stars? The unsettling image also conjures scenes of the film, My Life As A Dog, as its 12 year old protagonist admits that his life may be rough, but not nearly as horrible as the Russian cosmonaut dog, Laika, who was sent spinning into space without a return clause.
Alas, Holden Caufield, similarly and distinctly, describes wanting to go and live in a cabin in the woods. And so, his creator, did just that. For decades, I recall journalists’ plaintive cries that decreed landing a Salinger interview would be as newsworthy as establishing the existence of life on Mars. A Salinger interview was, arguably, the most sought-after coup on the planet, yet nobody was able to pull it off. There was the expose’ by Joyce Maynard, a young writer that admits to having shared his cabin in the woods in Cornish, New Hampshire, but I won’t go into the incendiary controversy that ensued, nor the chastising and blackballing that was unleashed upon her by the literary community as it struck out with vehemence in deference of Salinger’s reclusive integrity.
Both Bowie and Salinger, strangely, might have wanted to metaphorically go to Lhasa, so to speak. Stranger yet, there is anecdotal evidence that may hint that this hyperbole might not have been strictly metaphorical as these controversial and profoundly influential artists shared a definitive quest for Buddhist tenets inclusive of daily rituals of the most esoteric transcendental arts . That too, I sadly shared-in without fulfillment, ad infinitum. Last year, Bowie did produce an album that I’ve yet to fully explore. Don’t ask me why, for the answer may be as devastating as finding out, as a ten year old, that Tibet was under Chinese occupation and nobody could either get in nor out of it.
As Bowie remained a no-show at February’s Brit Awards, while Kate Moss claimed the coveted doohickey for Best British Male (artist) 2014 on his behalf, there has been rash and persistent speculation about the frailty of his body and mind. As for myself, the thought conjures what some of us can only speculate as being proof that Iman is keeping him in a dungeon—preferably a sex one—while sending her Ubermodel friend to the event on their behalf.
There continues to be a flurry of shrill speculation stirred by several photos that emerged wherein either the caption read something to the tune of: “Rare sighting of a frail Bowie in NYC shuffling about disoriented with lunch bag” or another such: “Unidentified woman seen with reclusive Bowie near his NYC residence”. I’m not going to play the game of outguessing anybody about the state of his hypothetical Alzheimer, possible strokes, nor the presumed maleficent intent in his looming absence. All I know is that I may be one of the few left who can laugh at the caption beneath the photo of the unidentified woman. So, I’ll ask in defiant jest, am I the only one who can identify Coco Schwab—his long time assistant and confidant—in and outside of a police lineup, if need be? Time wears bafflingly strange on us all, but I, more so, should have seen hints of this heart-wrenching disappearance as part of a plausible escape clause, laid out a long, long time ago.