David Bowie and The Bolivian Nose Candy

As I sit contemplatively chewing on a chocolate-covered espresso bean, I'm thinking about drugs and how creative people use them. David Bowie and many MANY others were pretty well known for snorting mountains of cocaine and still churning out some of the most amazing art. I was reading a book review of Angela Bowie's book where she complains end on end about his dysfunction as a person, a husband and father. But the reviewer basically said, and I agree, that if high Bowie gives us "Hunky Dory" and sober Bowie gives us "Tin Machine", who are we to judge? How can I really condemn him for his greatness while altered? I don't have to live with him, of course.

Twisted Fangirl love for the Thin White Duke aside, what does it say about me as an artist? I never did go in for that experimental drug phase that some of my friends, and countless Rock Gods, have indulged in. Going on a drug binge would be unseemly at my age, and I can only imagine how gross I would feel. Add the fact that Little A deserves sane and sober parenting and you can readily see that even getting drunk is pretty much out of the question. Am I missing out on some vital, visceral thing as a writer because I am prioitizing my family? Do you HAVE to be crazy to be creative? Its it mandatory? Or does it just make it easier to focus on one thing if you can take drugs to blot out that you aren't meeting all of your responsibilities?

I won't even go into all the artists who have gotten sober and their creative mojo dried up as they dried out. I'm talking to you Aerosmith/Van Halen/Duran Duran. Just as many musicians tank out or die trying to stay high all the time. Talking to you Curt Cobain, Keith Moon, Elvis, John Bonham and Jim Morrison.

But look at the writers who have shaken history with their words, and are just as famous for spiralling (sometimes literally) into the gutter. Jeeebus. Edgar Allen Poe, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, Kafka, Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker and the list goes on and on.

But drinking and drugging to that level makes you into a horrible person to be around. And I am trying to picture any one of those people doing a "corporate" reading at your local Barnes & Noble. The horrors! Who will think of the children? But my god, what is the alternative? Wholesome "Christian Rock"? *shudders* I'd rather explain the dangers of heroin to my kids than try and tackle that shit.

Now that Bowie is older and still makes art, he is seen as one of the survivors, a venerated elder statesman of decadant disco-style excess. The cocaine use seems almost quaint compared to the shit people are taking nowadays. Don't even get me started on the "sell your soul to the Devil" thing that is Meth. I'm seeing what that does to families up close, and it isn't pretty. The state doesn't even know what to do with it all.

But one gets the impression that Bowie was destined to be great as much as he was destined to get high and cheat on his wife with anything that moved, name his kid "Zowie", and ultimately end up becoming an arbiter of taste (albeit tongue firmly in cheek) in "Zoolander" and "Extras".

I'll always sort of love him, albeit from afar. VERY afar apparently if I want my vision of his genius to remain spotless like that suit in the "Modern Love" video.