David Bowie

I am heartbroken, shocked, and not quite sure how to respond on hearing of the death of David Bowie, just moments ago.

So I'll write.

This blog was/is a way to post stories of my childhood, growing up with a mother who was a David Bowie impersonator. She hand fed my brother and I his music from the time we were born. Hearing his songs is like coming home for us. We knew every word like most kids knew nursery rhymes.

Mum (Donn Shy) as the "Thin White Duke."

Having no idea of Bowie's state, I texted my brother the following at 5:27 p.m. PST this afternoon:

"Cleaning house, listening to The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. Reminds me of being kids and doing the same. And then--HOLY SHIT--what an amazing album! My God! What lucky monkeys we were to be introduced to this music when we were. Beyond comprehension."

Mind you, I'd been listening to that album on a loop since yesterday. Driving to Ojai from Malibu, I cycled through Aladdin Sane, Hunky Dory, as well as TRAFoZS. When driving through Oxnard, the California town I grew up in, I sang Drive In Saturday loud--not a care in the world--reminiscing on the times we listened to the album on tape in Mum's Toyota Celica, then Suburu station wagon, driving that same road when we were all much younger.

Mum became Bowie night after night, performing at clubs and such. It was a bit annoying as kids because, hell, we were kids and just wanted our mum to be a mum. PTA meetings, award assemblies, sandwiches. But as adults, hell if we don't think she was a Badass with a capital "B".

The week mum died (January of 2012)--I couldn't believe it--David Bowie graced the cover of Rolling Stone. 

I bought it. 

I kept it.

 

After my best friend, Great Dane Audrey, passed away, not long after Mum left this earth, I decided I was getting a tattoo. In fact, I was going to design that mother. And I did. 

Mum's symbol in her illness became a butterfly. I had given her, just before she passed, a bracelet I had made with a butterfly on it and a print of a butterfly with the following quote:

"Just when the caterpiller thought the world was over,

it became a butterfly." - Anonymous

She cried. And that memory is forever burned in my mind and when I see a butterfly approach me or my windows, "It's her," I say.

And Bowie. And then there was Bowie. And I sketched. And a butterfly came about with Bowie as Ziggy Stardust as the pattern it the butterfly's wings. And Audrey on the other side, soaking up the sun in a henna-like pattern. And I found one of THE best tattoo artists, Louie Perez at Shamrock Social Club in Hollywood, to finish the design and ultimately create what is now on my left arm for life. I'm so grateful for that and that he was available and up to the task.

 

Yes, I'm rambling. I have no idea how to respond other than to say this one cuts deep, for so many reasons. And though I don't know what I believe anymore when it comes to the afterlife, I wonder if he is where she is and if she is finally able to ask him all the questions she wanted to ask.

I have a special keepsake of hers that I've been searching for for a week. It wasn't where I last put it, the special place where I have been keeping it. I pulled down every storage bin, looked through every file. No where. And was feeling quite devastated. How could I be so irresponsible to misplace it?

When the news broke tonight about Bowie's death, I decided to pull out my "Bowie is Inside" book to have a look, hoping to find a photo I could post to Instagram with my sentiments. 

Out fell the keepsake. 

I don't recall putting it in there, but must have. 



Or must I have?

What's Harder? Losing the Dead or Losing the Living?

A hat, a couple of bloody t-shirts, and a plastic hospital pan.

Mum's life in a hospital pan. A plastic freaking hospital pan. 

This is it. All I have in my possession from my 36 years of life living on this earth with my mother. My creative, driven, beautiful, yet tortured soul of a mother died in January 2012 from complications related to a rare stomach cancer brought on by her years of alcohol overindulgence. 


It's been three years since Mum's death. It is strange indeed, but life has moved on, as it does. All of her things, her furniture, her clothes, her shoes, her knic knacs, her photos, her jewelry, her keepsakes, have all been moved into a storage unit at my step-father's job--I was told recently it's all being kept there without the owner's consent and could be found and dumped at any time. So, naturally, I'm panicked. 

When I was young, before my step-father and sister entered the picture, Mum was an artist. She painted, sketched, played music, and for years worked as a David Bowie impersonator (which I despised at the time, but now of course realize how badass she truly was). She painted an incredible abstract depiction of Elton John that hung above our orange '70s sofa for years, and as a little girl I'd stare up at it and counted the shapes and colors. She created ceramic pieces that she placed throughout the home. I cannot imagine my childhood without picturing these pieces--pots, psychedelic cats, busts--giving texture and color to life's background. Her music album collection consisted of Queen, David Bowie, The Beatles, The Kinks, Adam and the Ants, Alvin and the Chipmunks. She'd place these albums on the record player and we'd clean house or play games or dance about like the crazy neighborhood freaks we were, and those memories are held dear to my brother Tony and I. 

My step-father and sister never knew this woman. Only Tony and I were lucky enough to embrace her before she abandoned her for another persona. 

Somewhere in taped up boxes in my step-father's work warehouse lie Mum's Kink's albums, her sketches, her ceramic creations, her Bowie costumes, her complicated yet intriguing history. Somewhere in those boxes (that can be gone forever at any time) lie my brother's and my baby pictures, our special newborn outfits, the blankets she made especially for us, and small keepsakes from our respective fathers. 

Bill and Kelli never knew these memories, these blankets, these fathers, these moments, this life. And yet, they refuse to let them go--to us, at least.

.....

I'm working on a video project for disadvantaged children, connecting them with grown, successful mentors of sorts via video interviews. Starting in August of last year I was attempting to gather any equipment I could, and being on a tight budget, remembered Mum had loads of video and camera equipment in storage that wasn't being used and had sat there gathering dust for the past three years. If Mum were alive, she'd want to help. So I called my sister to not only discuss borrowing Mum's equipment for a few months, but also to arrange a special birthday dinner for her in Los Angeles.

After discussing the dinner in high spirits, I brought up borrowing the video equipment. 

"I don't want to keep it, just would like to borrow it for a few months. I know Mum would want it to be used and especially for something positive."

"No! That stuff is all MINE now. I don't care. Not you, not Papa, not Tony, not me, NO one will touch any of those things. I'm locking them up in storage until I die!" she replied. 

"I'm not asking to keep . . ."

"I don't care. No." Click. 

That was the last time I spoke with my sister. And no, we didn't end up going to a special dinner for her birthday. 

Months went by and after discussing the situation with my brother Tony, we decided we should give Bill, our step-dad, a call. After all, legally, my Mum's possessions were his, as they were legally still married before she passed (even though she told me just after her surgery that they were about to divorce). At this point, all Tony and I were looking to have is our baby pictures, our baby clothes, and a few knic knacs that meant something to us that they would have no clue of the significance. It would kill us if they ended up in a landfill next to soiled diapers and yesterday's treasures being picked at and shat upon by seagulls. No, please, no. 

I wish she'd written a goddamned will. 

His bottom line was, "I'll have the stuff moved into a storage unit. When we do that, anything that has your name on it I'll put it outside and good luck getting it." 

Trouble is, it won't have my name on it. Nor Tony's. 

Before Bill gave me this incredibly generous offer, I had offered to help them move it. I offered to get dinner, pizza, and help sort through all of it. We could do it as a family. I told him I was in no personal rush to get it, but I wanted to be sure it didn't end up in the dumpster before Tony and I have a chance to go through it. 

"I don't ever want to see your brother again." He said. 

"Why not?" I asked. 

"Because I'm sick and tired of hearing about how bad I treated him."

I wondered where he was hearing these stories as Tony and I had forgiven him long ago for the abuse. Must be his conscience, I thought. 

So, family members die, and I have to wonder if the most pain comes from losing the dead or losing those who are still alive and well. At least when losing the dead, there is a reason: car accident, long-standing illness, suicide, or in Mum's case, cancer.

.....

The hat I have sitting on the hospital pan represents a mum I didn't grow up knowing. It was her newer persona, the persona Bill and Kelli knew well and embraced, the persona loved and adored by her paranormal society colleagues, by her newer friends. I know my little sister would love to have this hat, and I'd gladly give it to her because I know how much it would mean to her. 

But she won't talk to me.  

No reason.

*Modern Love

Prior to her performances, I would observe her pre-show nerves while she was evolving into the glamorous rock star. I imagined it must have been a scary thing to go out into a crowd of young people and pretend to be someone else when you had a hard enough time just being you. Or maybe not. 

She seemed to vibrate as she skipped through the house, smoking those tall brown More cigarettes in the red and gold box, one after the other, closely followed by a waft of grey smoke: her ghostly entourage. The apartment filled with the overwhelming chemical scent of Aqua Net Extra Hold hairspray and the distinctive sounds of Mark Garson on the piano playing Bowie’s Aladdin Sane. I’d sit on the floor just outside the bathroom’s open door, silent, as I loved taking in all of her smells and feeling the sporadic bursts of warmth from the hairdryer embrace me, burning the familiar scent of my mother into my mind forever.

On this particular night, her stage was the middle of a roller-skating rink, and she dressed in a cream colored suit, a thin tie covered in Japanese characters, her hair short and feathered on top, and the hit song “Modern Love” was blaring over the loud speakers. Mum was David Bowie.

Excerpt from chapter fifteen | changes | Everything's Hunky Dory: A Memoir

Everything's Hunky Dory

Oh dear. It’s been quite a while. "Why?" you ask. Well, let’s see. My mother passed away from cancer. I was her sole caretaker at the end. That, and, I decided to write a book about the experience, along with details of our dark, severely unbalanced, yet somewhat entertaining relationship.  And I mention throughout the journey what it was like to have Asperger’s in a world where one’s mother isn’t quite June Cleaver nor Clair Huxtable, but David Bowie (or rather an impersonator of) in all of his glorious eccentricities. 

Yes, this is my story. And there's much more to come, so please stay tuned. :0)