The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

C: woohoo! you're a winner! 

B: excellent sarcastic lottery machine voice impression you got there, Compy. Hopefully they just call me in early and we can get the whole thing done, but knowing my luck it'll be right in the middle of some supposedly "mandatory" training and everyone will be all grumpy like they'd rather have jury duty with me than learn a new inventory system. I personally don't care one way or the other, it's everybody else's nervous anticipation that irritates me. Every waking moment of my existence is a surprise. 

E: seems like having Bottle on the jury is in nobody's best interest. 

B: that's fair, i mean i'll be walking in assuming some jerk is guilty of domestic abuse or drunkenly running his tractor into the electric pole. People drive like maniacs, why just this morning the "simple" data migration IT was supposed to do last night apparently went real bad and we're all booted out of the system while they fix whatever they broke. Never mind i was in the middle of checking in 152 SKUs at the time. 

S: that would certainly make me grumpy. 

B: nah, i actually laughed out loud. It's hilarious. Granted, my concept of hilarity is darker than a dead clown's mouth, but still hilarity. 

C: specifically to change the subject, do you want like a brand new web store, or like fix the beef portal or facebook or something? 

B: beef portal, meatplow, it's all terrible. I don't care. 

S: also, not to add fuel to the fire or anything, it is worth noting that the Supreme Court is hearing the case against everybody's "Biden Bucks," particularly in relation to the massive student loan problem. 

B: i'm aware, but my immune system can't deal with that one. If women's clothes weren't notorious for not having pockets i'd tell you to shove it in one, but for now just send it down the chute to Garbage Lady's treasure hoard. Oh, here, i don't want to weigh in on the whole no more Dilbert because Scott Adams thing either, so take this stack of papers away too. 

E: you're in a foul mood. 

B: not at all, i only sound grumpy on the outside. Inside i'm more like Ziggy Stardust, which coincidentally is tonight's album, and not coincidentally about losing the good graces of the people by taking your ego trip way too far. Damn, i guess i am unintentionally talking about Scott Adams after all. Fine, I'll just let David Bowie explain.... 

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: 

I'm trying to win the highly coveted TL;DR Award i just made up with this batch of semi-coherent reviews. I don't know why that acronym has a semicolon, but i do know we're gonna do a full explication of this highly  and rightfully esteemed whopper of a concept album that wasn't originally a concept album but quickly got tweaked once everybody realized it was. 

Between the clear as crystal title and the equally fantastic Brian Ward monochrome and subsequently colorized by Terry Pastor photo, it's safe to say they just don't make 'em like this anymore. I'll let that scene from U Turn explain: 

CD: How come David Bowie don't make no more new records? 

SP: Because he's dead. 

I am quite pleased with the coincidence of STP questioning the markedness of the Man/Woman dichotomy and Ziggy Stardust being an androgynous bisexual alien harbinger of the impending apocalypse, but coincidence is all the "spiders from mars/army ants" connection really is. Or maybe not, i don't know, Scott Weiland could totally have been subconsciously or intentionally referencing this album on that song for all the nothing i actually know. Can't ask him. 

Fun fact, Bowie was actually sad that they took the sign down when K. West moved out of that location because fans basically had no idea it was a real store. They thought it was a cryptic way of saying "quest" because who has fur coat money? K. West's lawyers sent RCA a nasty letter pointing out that they were high class Furriers whose clientele were certainly not of the "pop music" persuasion, but eventually they came to enjoy the prestige and notoriety of people photographing themselves in their doorway. 

Now for the actual plot, Bottle style. World's gonna end in 5 years. I know that's super specific, but these aren't my rules. 5 year's, that's all we've got. People wrestle with what love really means now that the end is officially nigh. Ziggy Stardust hijacks the radio and tv and all the children boogie in secret so their parents won't 5150 them. But, Rock'n'Roll is really just sex with funny clothes before hand, so Ziggy decided he'd rather be fame incarnate, but everybody said screw that alien narcissist and he died onstage begging the audience to applaud/pet him like a puppy. Then i guess 5 years had passed and the world 'sploded or something, the whole thing kind of ends with "welp, that got us nowhere" elipses.... 

The moral of that story is not surprisingly don't try to be famous, it will not end well. The story of the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is not, however, the concept. The actual Bottlean concept is Fashion. More specifically, our fickle, dishonest, and ultimately meaningless fixation with the image of idealism, i.e. the ego. Bowie, like Tool, was a big fan of Jung. 

As for no more Dilbert, i'm on the fence. On the one hand i'm under the impression that Scott Adams said a whole lot of things that i would recommend not saying no matter how vehemently you might think them, so he's right there in the boat with all the other contortionists and the consequence is that newspapers aren't willing to defend you or publish your comic strip anymore. On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge actual Dilbert wasn't really the problem, the problem was all the non-Dilbert stupid ideas walking around inside its imagineer's head that he thought were perfectly fine to unbottle all over everyone. It's tricky, but the other option is out there too. I mean, Justin Roiland is in hot water, but the rest of the Rick & Morty crew said "get the hell out of here Dave 2, we're not gonna have all our hard work flushed down the toilet just because you're an abusive perv." We talked about no more Scott Kelly and his conspicuous absence from the last Mastodon album. It's the separating the art from the artist problem and there is no such thing as universal agreement. No one is wrong for being unhappy that Dilbert's gone, and no one is wrong for dumping it now that its creator turned out to be, some would say, insane. Freedom of Speech is not freedom from the consequences of saying whatever you feel like twice daily on your podcast. Alex Jones, need i say more? 

Of course i need to say more, that was just the off the top of my head part before we actually listen to it. I know the judge, he takes the TL;DR Award ceremony serious. 

Weird and Gilly are the Spiders from Mars, but i have no clue who any if the other people are. Sorry, i'm all twisted up in various time streams, we begin with Five Years, and i'd like to point out we do this all the time. Nostradamus, the Mayan calendar, Y2K, Trump's "I'll show you my nucular (sic) bombs if you show me yours," the "downsizing" craze in the 90s that saw Scott Adams's cartoon Dilbert rise to mainstream popularity, asteroids, the housing and subsequent student loan crisis, etc. It's a standard doomsday thought experiment lived out on a mass hysteria level 'cause everybody has what i call "TV brain syndrome." I'm kinda tired of it, to be honest. But i'm not the boss, so on to Soul Love. It's like i said, grappling with the concept of love in the face of doom. Modern English did it better in my opinion, but that's just me being crotchety. 

Moonage Daydream and Starman. That's the hack the planet broadcast and then a story of hearing that broadcast. You'll only know this if you know the interview Bowie did with William S. Burroughs where he explained that Ziggy Stardust is merely the earthly messanger of the Starman. That's what makes the story, Ziggy is really just a televangelist, or like a not-successful Jim Jones/Marshall Applewhite. Starman, Hale-Bopp, same difference. 

It makes a big difference to the story, though. Ziggy isn't Bluebird from that Nectar album saying "oh, why didn't you tell me? I can totally cure blindness." Ziggy's a false prophet exploiting the Starman (if there even is one) for personal gain. Totally deserves his comeuppance. 

Star, It Ain't Easy, Lady Stardust, Hang On To Yourself, whatever order, those are all songs about Ziggy and the band that lead up to the full falling out. Then Sufferagette City and Rock'n'Roll Suicide are his final downward spiral. 

And, you know, the world ends for Ziggy at least. I never said it wasn't a depressing story, i merely said it's one of the best concept albums of all time. Ziggy Stardust is basically Icarus, flew too close to the bug zapper, stuck a fork in the outlet, whatever idiom you prefer. Point is, it kind of has the vibe of a massive publicity stunt, a desperate guy's grasp at fame and fortune. Silly if the world's actually ending. 

That's the problem i have with a lot of these scenario explorations. Most people try to bring all the baggage they had back when the world wasn't going to end with them. Starman didn't save anybody that we know of, this is just the story of a guy who tried to take advantage of a desperate situation and failed miserably. 

I honestly don't know, maybe you feel pity for Ziggy Stardust, but i kinda feel like "dude, world's gonna end and you're all i sure could use all that sweet sweet Rock Star money." That's ridiculous. So, here's my bonkers theory. No Starman, it's all just a global hoax perpetrated by the media to make a profit and Ziggy Stardust is every person who has ever bought into that illusion and found out the hard way that fame and fortune is definitely not all it's cracked up to be. Doesn't matter if i'm right or wrong, it's just an album, but if we're measuring albums on a scale of "meh" to "makes my brain feel like Gandalf lit off some fireworks," this thing is totally the dragon Merry and Pippin lit during Bilbo's going away party. Totally worth it.

Nirvana