Ziggy Played Guitar
If good looks was a minute/ You know that you could've been an hour- Smokey Robinson, 'The Way You Do The Things You Do'
The school year is around the corner. Hundreds of thousands of kids wil begin high school over the next two weeks. They will walk gingerly through the giant hallways, hands on bookbag straps, eyes like saucers. A more frightened and awkward group of humans you will rarely see. I’d love to give all these freshmen a copy of Ziggy Stardust when they enter school. Bowie never gets much credit for being much of an open-hearted romantic, but Ziggy was always a very good friend. The story of an alien on earth rings true to aliens in their own bodies.
God, I’m so glad I never have to be a teenager again.
You try it. You like it. You buy it. 
“I Think I Helped Wipe Out The ’60’s”
The 70’s were awesome. Great movies. Great musicians. Great clothes. Everyone and their mothers’ on drugs. The clip above, from Iggy and David’s 1977 stop at Dinah Shore’s morning show, could never happen today. No Age isn’t about to hit Good Morning America for a chat-up. Not gonna happen. America today is too divided on itself. The squares stay with the squares. The hipsters stay with the hipsters. But in the ’70’s, Reagan had not happened yet, nor indie music. We all lived in this drugged-out, post-Watergate haze. We were all equally disillusioned. It was fantastic. God, I wish I grew up there.
Iggy lies about how he lost his teeth in the clip, not ‘fessing up that he lost most of them because he was a degenerate junkie. All the punks want to own Iggy, but it’s pretty clear from this clip he wanted to be Bowie. Iggy wanted to be a pop star. He was always just a little too strange for it to ever happen. Like a similar interview from the time I’ve seen of Iggy with Dick Cavett, I’m always amazed at how curious the mainstream was with Iggy. When he was on these shows, it was almost like he was one of Joan Embry’s wild animals.
Iggy Pop/David Bowie Interview – Funtime performance – Dinah
There is no doubt that Rosemary Clooney (George’s aunt) was way higher than Iggy during this interview. The whole thing is delicious. Dinah loving the fact that Soupy Sales’ sons are in Iggy’s band. Iggy performing ‘Funtime’ while the rest of America put on their plaid jackets for work.
Finally, here is David solo making his first appearance on the Dinah show, coked out of his gills and in full Berlin Thin White Duke mode, enjoying a chat with the Fonz and Madge from the Palmolive commercials. Stick around and watch the four relate to each other like my wife and her girlfriends. Creepy. And then he practices karate with what appears to be a human underneath all that afro! Why are modern variety shows never this compelling?
With all of this, plus the holiday he spent with Der Bingle, did Bowie just have an awful agent, or was he fully aware of how freakin’ alien his appearances would be viewed twenty years on?
We at Shambollocks! would also be remiss if we did not mention the passing of Iggy’s sideman, Stooges’ guitarist Ron Asheton, who died yesterday at the age of 60. Ron was truly one of the unsung heroes of rock. If you’ve never listened to his work, particulary on Fun House, you best get yourself to your nearest retailer and check it out. The man’s guitar was a screaming animal, in an awful lot of pain.
Devil’s horns, Ron. May you enjoy the adulation in rock n’ roll heaven you never found here.
O'Hare Arpt., IL
