song of the day – “Ashes To Ashes” | DAVID BOWIE | 1980.

As I write this, it was about eight hours from now a year ago when I learned of the sad passing of one of my music heroes, David Bowie.  I had the TV on to help me sleep, and the news of his death woke me up from a deep sleep.  Later that day, I posted my first-ever blog post. 

My very fresh Bowie tattoo, 4.13.16.

 Three months and two days after learning of David’s passing, his face and his words (“We could be heroes just for one day”) became my first-ever tattoo – at age 49.  If you had asked me on January 1, 2016, if I would ever get a tattoo, I would have told you no.  Turns out that David Bowie had more influence on my life than I had expected or known. 

As my Mom pointed out to me earlier today, David passed away on the same day of the birthday of my late grandfather, Thurman Berry (my Mom’s dad).  My Grampy Berry died in 2002 and would have been 97 a year ago today.  I miss them both.

A photo taken during the 80s at the Seawall Picnic Area (part of Acadia National Park), that’s my late grandfather, Thurman Berry, showing no fear in letting the seagull eat right out of his hand. 

Seems like the appeal and influence of David Bowie was bigger than others had expected too.  His brilliant album, BLACKSTAR, released on his 69th birthday and just two days before his death, became David’s first No. 1 album here in the U.S., and reached No. 1 in at least a whopping (and deserved) 22 other countries. 

With vinyl records making a sweet comeback, the vinyl version of BLACKSTAR was the second-biggest selling physical record album of 2016 here in America, and just missed out on being the biggest vinyl album of the year by only a couple thousand records.  That vinyl version of BLACKSTAR also had a special gift left by Mr. Bowie himself. 

Four months after David’s death, it was discovered that, in certain conditions (like leaving the album jacket out in the sun), the black star ended up revealing an image of a galaxy.  So, the Starman leaves us a galaxy of stars by way of one BLACKSTAR.  Brilliant, much like David himself.

Sadly, David’s wasn’t the only heavy-hitting celebrity death of 2016.  There would be many, many more, continuing later that week with another cool, classy and gifted 69-year-old Brit, Alan Rickman, and the list went on and on throughout the year, including Prince on April 21st, George Michael on Xmas Day, and Carrie Fisher and her mom, Debbie Reynolds, one day apart in the last week of the year.

I’ve had David’s music on my iPod for an entire year.  Usually at some point, I switch out all the songs on the iPod for different ones, and I’ve done that to an extent, but not with David’s music.  I kinda still think he’s here, you know?  Another loss in 2016 – this one more personal – my parents had to say goodbye to their 13-year-old Shih Tzu, Bandit, a week before Xmas.  I feel like he’s still around too.

2016 was a cruel year to be a music and pop culture fan, but it also made me think about my own life and my own future, you know?  I turn 50 in about a month and I’m often told I look like I’m in my 30s.  I’ll take it.  But, I also have to remember to not take my youthful looks for granted, to remind myself that I’m not in my 30s, to take care of myself, and to live life to the fullest, or at the very least, try, because you never know when it’ll be gone.

Not to sound too morbid, but when it’s my time, I do not wish to be buried, but instead, cremated.  Being born in Bar Harbor, Maine, I’ve always had a strong connection to the ocean, and I want a third of my ashes scattered in the ocean and at the Seawall Picnic Area (part of Acadia National Park here in Maine), my favorite spot in the whole world, and a third scattered in the ocean and at Kettle Cove in Cape Elizabeth, my second favorite spot in Maine. 

Kettle Cove, Cape Elizabeth, Maine, Xmas Day 2016 (photo courtesy of yours truly).

My reasoning for being cremated over being buried?  Well, instead of some gravestone marker with my name and dates of birth and death on it, my family and friends can just go to the Atlantic Ocean and I’ll be there, whether you’re in Maine, Jersey, Florida or Ireland.  It won’t be depressing, but lovely and therapeutic I think.  Go to the ocean and say HI.  I may or may not respond, but I’ll always be there.  I can’t tell you how excited I get to spend some time near the ocean, and it’s always lovely and therapeutic to me.

As for the other third of my ashes, I’d read somewhere years ago that you can take your cremated ashes and somehow have them incorporated into the making of a record album.  It’s not cheap, I don’t know if they would need all the ashes and I don’t know if I could ever afford that when the time comes (hopefully not for awhile!), but with music being such an integral part of most of my life, it’s not only downright cool, but feels right.  I could say something nerdy or funny on the record and you could play a couple of my favorite tunes.

With it being the first anniversary of the passing of David Bowie from one universe to another, and talk about death and ashes, his brilliant 1980 gem, “Ashes To Ashes” seems appropriate as my FOREVER YOUNG “song of the day” today.

“Ashes To Ashes” was the first single from David Bowie’s 14th studio album (and his last for RCA), SCARY MONSTERS (AND SUPER CREEPS) (or SCARY MONSTERS for short), and released a month in advance of the album.

The lyrics of the song revisit the character of Major Tom, introduced in Bowie’s first global hit, 1969’s “Space Oddity.”  In a 1980 interview, David described “Ashes To Ashes” as “very much a 1980s nursery rhyme.  I think 1980s nursery rhymes will have a lot to do with the 1880s/1890s nursery rhymes which are all rather horrid and had little boys with their ears being cut off and stuff like that.”  For him personally, David would later say that with the song, he was “wrapping up the seventies really, [which] seemed a good enough epitaph for it.”

The music video for “Ashes To Ashes” cost over $500,000 to make, which, at the time, was the most expensive video ever made, and remains as one of the most expensive videos ever.  Keep in mind this was a year before MTV debuted.

But, the video was popular and seemed to work.  “Ashes To Ashes” debuted at No. 4 on the U.K. singles chart and reached No. 1 a week later, his fastest-selling single to that point.  It spent two weeks at No. 1, was certified Silver, and was his second U.K. No. 1 single, following a 1975 reissue of “Space Oddity.”  Around the globe, it reached the Top 10 in Australia, Austria, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden, and the Top 20 in at least four other countries.

“Ashes To Ashes” has seen a plethora of cover versions over the years, many of them since the year 2000.  My favorite cover version of “Ashes To Ashes” is a 1992 version by Tears For Fears.  To celebrate 40 years of the NEW MUSIC EXPRESS (NME) publication, a three-disc charity set called RUBY TRAX was released, containing 40 covers of (mostly) No. 1 U.K. hits by popular artists of the time. 

The Tears For Fears cover of this song is so good, the first time I heard it (many years after its release), I didn’t realize it was Tears For Fears until the first line of the second verse.  Even now, it takes me a moment to distinguish the cover from the original.

David Bowie, photographed by Anton Corbijn in 1980.

With a piece of trivia that still stuns me to this day, “Ashes To Ashes” just missed reaching the BILLBOARD Hot 100 (peaking at No. 101).  I guess I’ll never understand why this incredible song didn’t find an audience here.  Maybe that’s another reason why David left RCA.  Hard to say all these years later. 

What I can say with some amount of certainty is that I considered myself as a big fan of David Bowie while he was alive, but with his death, something changed inside of me.  Some of it I’m still trying to figure out.  It’s all positive, though, and that’s the only way I can describe how I feel now without looking up what I wrote a year ago. 

As I know I’ve previously said in this forum, and I’m not sorry for repeating it here, I was lucky enough to be on the same planet as David Bowie for nearly 50 years, and that’s pretty damn cool…still.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMThz7eQ6K0

last christmas and the closing of the year.

On Xmas Day 2016, just minutes before my 21st and final STUCK IN THE 80s Annual Holiday Show was to air on WMPG community radio in Portland, Maine, I found out that George Michael passed away at the age of 53, just three years and eight months older than me.  Shock doesn’t even begin to describe it.

I started getting Facebook posts and messages and texts about George’s death, because George was definitive 80s and then some, and folks know (and have known for a long time) that I host and produce a show about 80s music and then some.

So, as much as I wanted to have my Last Christmas show be the special 4-hour show I prepared for, I made the last-minute decision to split the show into a part Xmas show and part tribute to George Michael.  It wasn’t the Xmas show I wanted to do, and it wasn’t the proper tribute that George deserved, but with only a handful of STUCK IN THE 80s shows left, it was the best option.  I think it turned out okay.

I wouldn’t call myself the biggest Wham! or George Michael fan, but I was a fan, and really enjoyed George Michael’s early solo career and his huge FAITH album from 1987.  I admired George for wanting to branch out past the Wham! poppiness (is that a word?  it is today), and do what he wanted to do.  FAITH was an amazing testament to that.  He branched out even further with his follow-up album, 1990’s  LISTEN WITHOUT PREJUDICE VOL. 1. 

When “I Want Your Sex” was first released (originally as part of the BEVERLY HILLS COP 2 soundtrack and later as the first single from FAITH), I relished how people got so bent out of shape about a song about monogamous sex, just because it had the word “Sex” in the title.  Even before the full video began, George stated, “This song is not about casual sex.”

Still, it prompted my radio hero, Casey Kasem, not to say the title of the song at first (despite climbing to No. 2 on the BILLBOARD Hot 100), and prompted many radio stations to change the word “sex” into the song to “love.”  (I DID NOT relish the fact that the local Top 40 station in Central Maine, 92 Moose, changed the word “sex” to “moose,” as in “I Want Your Moose.”  That was just fucking stupid and annoying.  But, as much as I love the 80s, some things that were deemed “too controversial” at the time weren’t even controversial at all.  O well, that was a long time ago.

The last song I remember digging by George Michael was released in April 1996, and became his last American chart hit – “Fastlove,” which reached No. 8 on the Hot 100 in June 1996 and sampled Patrice Rushen’s 1982 hit, “Forget Me Nots.”

For those who know STAR TREK legend George Takei and his amazing Facebook and Twitter posts, I really loved what he wrote after George’s death: “Rest with the glittering stars, George Michael.  You’ve found your Freedom, your Faith.  It was your Last Christmas, and we shall miss you.”  I also liked what actor Rob Lowe said on Twitter: “Had the pleasure of knowing George Michael in the 80s.  Voice of an angel.  Now he can sing for them.”

A few days before George Michael’s death, one of my favorite people of all-time (and not just because of STAR WARS), Carrie Fisher, suffered a heart attack on a plane flying from London to Los Angeles.  The plane was 15 minutes away from landing, and for a little while, it looked like she was going to pull through, and tell 2016 to go fuck itself.  I really loved this drawing I saw online soon after, with what appears to be the Grim Reaper (and 2016 on his cape), kneeling before Princess Leia, as she says, “You are strong, but the Force is stronger.”

But, as strong as the Force is, Carrie didn’t make it, and died on December 27, two days after George Michael passed away.  She was just 60 years old (barely), and 10 years and four months older than me.  Again, I loved what George Takei said about Carrie in a post: “As a small, wise master once said, ‘Death is a natural part of life.  Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force.’  We honor you today, Carrie.  We’ll think of you when we turn our heads to look to the heavens.”

One of my best friends, Michael, respectfully half-joked in a post on Facebook, “She survived Darth Vader.  She survived the Blues Brothers.  She couldn’t survive the buzz-saw that is 2016.  4 more days to go.  I have a bad feeling about this.”

And then, the very next day after Carrie’s death, the unthinkable happened.  Her mother, legendary actress Debbie Reynolds, died as a result of a stroke.  She had said to her son, Carrie’s brother Todd Fisher, “I want to be with Carrie” shortly before she died.  They will be buried together.  Heartbreaking and touching…

Another beautiful drawing I found online, of Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia from STAR WARS and Debbie Reynolds’ Kathy Selden from SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN…

I was speaking with my dear and incredibly talented friend, Hope, on Xmas night during the show, and I think I said to her, “When Robin Williams died (in 2014), I can’t remember anyone else who died that year.”  In any other year, three high-profile celebrity deaths in less than a week might or might not seem that odd.  But this isn’t any other year.  I can’t remember any year with more painful losses – celebrity and personal – than 2016 (my brother-in-law’s dad died earlier this year, and my parents’ dog, Bandit, was gone after 13 years just six days before Xmas; Bandit was my mom’s faithful companion all his life, and gave me a newfound respect for small dogs).

Here is the last picture I took of Bandit, my parents’ Shih Tzu, taken on December 11, 2016, one week exactly before he was gone (photo enhanced by my Mom).  He was looking up at the angel atop of my parents’ Xmas tree.  I’ll never forget it.

Just hours now before the closing of the year here in Central Maine, I can’t help but think how hard it was to be a music and pop culture fan in 2016.  So many heavy-hitting losses in many genres and acting circles all through the year, not to mention all of the awful terror attacks throughout the globe.  But, I’ll also remember some really great things too. 

On the day I learned of David Bowie’s January 10th death (on the morning of January 11, 2016), I started my first-ever blog (with special thanks to Hope!).  It’s part autobiographical, part singles chart nerdiness, and explains (at least in part I hope) why the 80s will keep “forever young,” and how I’ll always be “stuck in the 80s.”  It’s been interesting.  I consider myself to be a good writer, but I never did enough of it.  Now I’m writing on a regular basis, and it’s great.  And with some of these blog posts, I’m putting myself out there, which I admit, is often hard for me.  But, I’m proud of the blog and want to do more with it in 2017, so stay tuned!

In March 2016, my dear friend Hope survived a horrific car crash in Massachusetts, one day after finishing her kick-ass radio show on WMPG.  The Force was definitely strong with her that night and then some.  I’m forever grateful she survived that car crash, and I look forward to being the reader of her future best-sellers and her dear, dear friend for many years to come.

If you thought this was the Eurythmics, you’d be wrong!  That’s me and my dear friend, Hope, during her last POWERHAUS show (on WMPG community radio) Sunday, 3.13.2016.

2016 was also the year I got to see some of my favorite acts for the very first time, like Peter Gabriel, OMD, and a mid-April concert with Duran Duran and Chic featuring the amazing Nile Rodgers in Brooklyn (no concerts I’ve been to have been featured in BILLBOARD magazine, but that one was!).  The day after that concert with my dear friend Shawn, he helped me get my first tattoo (at 49 years old; of David Bowie).  If you had asked me at the beginning of 2016 if I would ever get a tattoo, I would have said, “No way.”  So much for that. 

My dear friend Shawn behind the camera, documenting the application of my first tattoo (of Mr. Bowie) at Lucky Dog Tattoos, Queens, NYC, 4.13.2016.

I also got my first “new-ish” car in many years this year.  I fucked up my credit in my early 20s during my second bout with college, and, while I’m still rebuilding my credit, the fact I was actually able to score a car that’s less than five years old is a pretty big deal for me.  Of course, I’ll be spending the next five years paying for it, but it’s all good, really.

My new(ish) baby!  She doesn’t have a name yet though – like my last car, this one’s silver, and I can’t call her Silvie, because that was the name of my last car.  Name suggestions welcomed!

There were a lot of firsts and lasts in my life this year.  There’ll be more in 2017.  Just a handful of shows remain on my long-running little retro program, STUCK IN THE 80s (at least in this incarnation on WMPG).  And, while I’m sad about that, it’s time.  And, it’s not like STUCK IN THE 80s will be away forever – it just won’t be on WMPG, my second home for two decades.  And I’ll always love my experience and the friends and family I’ve made over the years, but it’s time to take the show to another level.  This blog is just the first step.

I half-joke at the end of every year about resolutions and say, “I gave up resolutions this year.”  (It’s actually a joke about Lent resolutions I love from a 1995 movie I love by Edward Burns, THE BROTHERS McMULLEN.)

For 2017, I don’t think I can use that go-to half-joke this time around.  There’s things I really want to do, like find a new home for STUCK IN THE 80s, expand the blog, take better care of myself and finally finish writing a screenplay and film something I’ve written, for starters. 

I’m turning 50 years old in a month and a half.  Holy cats!  Half a century old!  How the fuck did that happen?!  Well, it did, and I’m ready for it (although my sore back and arm from shoveling Snowzilla the other day might disagree).  I may not be ready for more personal and celebrity deaths of people I love, but Master Yoda was right – “Death is a natural part of life.  Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force.”  And I will.  I can’t guaRONtee it won’t be easy or it’ll involve getting another tattoo, but you never know.

R.I.P. to everyone we lost this year, and especially to David Bowie, Prince, Carrie Fisher, Bud Ferry (my brother-in-law’s dad) and Bandit Raymond.  I will miss you all very much, and you’ll always be a part of me.

To my wealth of family and my dear friends like Hope, Michael, Shawn in NYC, Shawn in Portland, Maine, and my oldest friend, Peter, I love you all very much, and thank you not only for being my dearest of friends, but for all of your kind words, cheerleading, believing in me and for being there for yours truly.

To everyone who has been kind enough to read, like, share or comment and leave a kind word about my blog, I thank you so very much.  It’s great to know people from close by to other parts of the world are digging my blog; it’s encouraging and inspiring that the stories I write about my life and the songs that I love are not only being read but appreciated.

And not to sound too personal about the end of 2016 (actually, that’s a complete lie), but seriously – Kick out the jams and stand by the jams!  Yippie ki-yay, motherfuckers, and bring on 2017 and 50!!  I’m so fucking ready for you.

I’ll close my last post of 2016 with a favorite lyric about the new year from John Lennon that you’ll know very well, but I’m going to say here anyway: “Let’s hope it’s a good one without any fear…”

Peace, Love, and Happy 2017 everyone!  Until next time, I’ll catch you on the flip side…