This is so weird. But why wouldn't it be? David Bowie's involved.
Been a Bowie fan since I first heard "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" in 1972 (bought it at the PX on Fort Bliss).
I didn't miss many tours after moving to Michigan in 1983 (and saw one show before that, in Dallas), including the last one in 2004.
I have longed for something new out of the aging rock auteur and just yesterday morning, Jan. 7, I inserted a paragraph into my column for the Jan. 15 paper, my annual list of things I wish for in the new year, about wishing Bowie would make a comeback.
But I know absolutely nothing about what he'd been doing, other than things I've read occasionally about how much he's been out of the public eye since his heart surgery in 2004.
I'm not sure what triggered. Might have been another column I wrote for today's paper, in which I listed the 40th anniversary "Ziggy Stardust" reissue among my favorite releases of 2012.
Or the pic I saw recently of Bowie walking down the street in NYC with a shopping bag in his hand, the kind of rare glimpse we've had of him over the last several years.
I was one of no doubt millions heartened by the news this morning that the Bowie chose to celebrate his 66th birthday today by posting the video for a new song, the sad and reflective "Where Are We Now?," the first salvo from a new album, "The Next Day," due March 12.
It's his first new album since "Reality" was released in 2003.
So much has happened since then. Like many of his fans, I'm trying to glean specks of meaning from the 17 new songs announced on his site today, such as "Dirty Boys," "Dancing Out in Space," "You Feel So Lonely You Could Die" and "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)," but we won't really know what he singing about until we hear it.
Until then, here's the new video, shot at his old apartment in Berlin, where Bowie spent some key years in the '70s trying to clean up and start over.
Wonder who the woman is next to him in that weird, distorted, two-headed puppet? Maybe she represents something he didn't have at that time, or a relationship ruined by his chemical dependency.
Guess I'll have to change that wish list item from "wish" he would come back to being glad that he is coming back.
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