I woke up earlier than usual this morning, probably because I went to be earlier than usual last night. It’s all part of Operation: Reboot, and while it’s been a challenging adjustment, it’s worth it.
I sat up in bed, next to both of my dogs who looked confused. Dad doesn’t get out of bed for at least another three hours. What’s going on? Marlowe made a curious sound. Seamus grunted and buried his face into the covers.
I got out of bed, and shuffled into the living room. Anne looked up at me from the couch and said, “David Bowie died.”
David Bowie died? That’s impossible. I must not be entirely awake.
“What?” I said.
“David Bowie died,” she said, tears in her eyes.
I took a moment to run those words, in that order, through my brain. “How?” I asked. It still didn’t make sense to me. Sure, I’d only been awake — and barely, at that — for two minutes, but even if I’d gotten the news in the middle of the day, I wouldn’t have believed it.
“He had cancer,” she said.
Cancer. Well, fuck.
“I … Jesus.” I leaned against the kitchen counter.
It’s three hours later, and I’m awake. I’ve been listening to Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane and Hunky Dory, and I still can’t believe this is real.
David Bowie isn’t a mortal like the rest of us. This doesn’t make sense. This isn’t possible.
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I borrowed my featured image from the great Scott Campbell.
That was my thought too. My first reaction was “He isn’t old enough to be dead.” All day I’ve been trying to process the news and it still hasn’t completely kicked into my reality yet. I now understand how my friend’s Mom felt when she told us that Elvis had died.
Though I was never into his music, he made many millions happy. Rest well in death David Bowie. You continue to be celebrated in life. I will drink to his memory fervently.
I’m not sure if it’s because I got no sleep last night (one very sick kiddo) or if … no… It’s David Bowie. Bowie. I keep randomly crying. This sucks.
I prefer the headlines today that say “David Bowie returns to his home planet” because THAT makes some kind of sense.
if we start off in disbelief, it is because we thought he was immortal. He was not human, he was from other places, out beyond our understanding. He spoke not our language yet said something poignant to each one of us. And we are left standing under a darker sky wondering where our president freak went. He who stood for the weirdos. We are without orders and we feel lost.
Very well said, thank you
I agree. A legend like him should live forever💔
Forever my Goblin King.
Its just not right.
Pretty much my reaction. And he was in the midst of a late-career revival. He’s current stuff is fantastic. I can’t even past tense today.
I got a message from a friend last night that Bowie died. My response was “nooo no no, that’s a hoax. You really have to check these things. He just released an album two days ago, and celebrated his birthday.”
“No. It’s real. It’s not a hoax. Turn on the TV.”
I turn on the TV, flip to CNN…. and there it is, Bowie has died. The anchor says something about how nobody wanted to cover the story, because EVERYONE was sure it was a hoax…. “But his official twitter said it.” “Yes… twitter accounts get hacked, though.”
It was when his son, Duncan Jones, confirmed it in a tweet that CNN decided it was real. And then it was everywhere. And I just sat on my couch and cried like a child.
I can’t conceive that David Bowie isn’t immortal. I choose to believe he finished his mission and went back to his home planet.
I know what you mean. I’ve been crying off and on ever since I heard about this last night. It just seems so impossible that he’s moved on.
Punch to the gut. Cancer’s a bitch. It’s great to see Jimmy Carter cured but can’t wait till cancer is a thing of the past. crosses fingers
There are people working on making cancer permanently part of history. And they still need help.
You can cross your fingers or you can call your congressman and senator. Cancer research funding was decimated in the sequester deal and it’s still not back to sustainable levels.
And Obama signed off on it.
Cancer is t going to cure itself. The NIH needs funding.
I was in bed late yesterday morning, Wil.
I work late into the evening at the University of Memphis on Saturday night. I leaned over to turn on a little Sony shortwave radio on top of the bed stand and heard the strains of “Changes” coming out of it about 9am yesterday morning. I listened, it made me feel good. I turned off the radio, went back to sleep.
When I finally got out of bed, I opened the local newspaper online and saw that David had passed away yesterday.
I saw his Ziggy Stardust tour. He was great !
thank you for putting into words everything that’s been welling up in my heart today. i wish i could have a moment today to listen to all those albums too (i’ll replay them in my head anyway). “waiting for the gift of sound and vision”…
Not the first time I’ve said this today – thinking of David Bowie, I always remember him in an interview talking about doing shows, and having younger people come up to him after, saying that it was so cool that he had covered a Nirvana song in his show.
I now always picture the Goblin King, exasperated, telling some young schmuck, “I AM the Man Who Sold the World!”
This mornings news of his death shocked me. Contrary to Lemmy, Terry Pratchett, B.B. King or Natalie Cole – Bowies state of health was not issued anywhere.
The “Station to Station” tour 1976/77 was my first Bowie concert. 5 other Bowie concert followed over the next decades.
Bowies music was a part of my life’s soundtrack. Even the fact that i do own over 30 of his albums (include a few bootlegs) i’m not what you call a Bowie fanatic. I do own much more albums of other artists releases.
But Bowie was an artist, who really had something to say with his art. I will miss him.
(Sorry for my bad English. I’m really out of practice.)
I’ve been listening to Internet radio all day. Every song is different and reminds me of pieces of my life.
How appropriate that David Bowie had an asteroid named after him between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter (342843 Davidbowie). http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi#top
I have never lived in a world that didn’t have David Bowie in it. I don’t know if I can adjust. Gravity’s not working right, things have lost their shine. Nothing’s right. How can we go on?
David Bowie, wearing a dress and performing on the SNL stage back in 1979, was the moment my small town ‘rural’ perceptions changed. A whole new world was opened to me and for that, I will forever be in his debt
Bowie was my wife’s favorite musician of all time. I was flipping through my Twitter feed and found an “R.I.P. Davie Bowie” tweet from a follower. I blinked several times, as I was not yet awake, but the words remained. I tossed my phone to the side and shot up from the couch to grab my laptop, where I found out immediately that it was true. My wife and I are a little rattled today. This won’t go away soon. Btw…fans may appreciate this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwlZ6gZHKLc
A friend of mine posted this today. I hope he won’t object if I quote it here: “David Bowie is one of those artists you think will always be there. He reinvented himself again and again, and I really didn’t think he would ever stop, he’d just keep on going, like a never-ending regeneration of himself, outliving us all, becoming post-human, then post-post-human, bringing his music to other worlds, other universes.”
So he really is the Doctor.
In all of history, all of time and space, I got to share a sliver of it on the same blue pebble hurtling through the cosmos with David Bowie.
As if Bowie could ever die.
He’s in space now.
I’m so happy I got to live during the time David Bowie was active and creating art. I love how he taught us being different is okay–different from others and different from ourselves. He showed us changing from your old self (or the self others expect) is not only okay, it can be FANTASTIC.
I wrote a little thing about grieving and self-care and what David Bowie meant to me. I don’t usually go out of my way to share these things around, but I feel like putting myself out there is a fitting tribute to the memory of someone as vibrant and unafraid as Bowie.
https://fangirlknitsscarf.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/goodbye-goblin-king/
I prefer to think that cancer was just a cover story. It was time for him to return to his Elven homeland and cross the sea to Valinor.
My favorite thing I’ve seen so far today: “Legendary space being David Bowie has moved on to the next phase of his existence and we in the material plane are all the poorer for his absence.”
The internet is an amazing place were we can mourn together. Thank you for this post where we can share in our grief and remember the the unfathomable reach of his influence.
I admit, the news felt to me like someone had just pointed to the sky and shouted “the moon is gone”. This massive celestial thing that has lightened my nights and have been with me forever .. is all of the sudden gone. Just a patch of empty space left.
I guess we’re getting old, Wil. Our heroes–Nimoy, Bowie, Wayne Rogers, Pat Harrington, Jr. et. al.–are starting to die off. The news woke me up via the radio this morning.
“We could be heroes, just for one day . . .”
Friend from the UK posted it before I went to bed last night. They’d only just confirmed it when I headed to my California goodnight at around 11:20 last night.
No, it can’t be real, because, as you said, he’s the sort you thought was immortal. And now, honestly, he is. Just making magic elsewhere, I hope.
He wasn’t like us, he fell to Earth and made the world a better place. He returned home to the stars leaving a shell and great works behind
All I can say at this point is that I’m glad we (and he) lived at a time when there were plenty of media to record his works so we, and others who aren’t even born yet, can enjoy those works for a very long time.
We’ve been playing his songs all day in the office and I was okay. Now I’m home and can’t stop tearing up. Ziggy Stardust taught me it was okay to just be.
Yeah, that seems to be what a lot of people express today in regards to Bowie. That he made it okay for them to be the people they really were, nerds, gay, weirdos, whatever.
David Bowie was an artist in a field saturated by craftsmen. His contribution to Popular Music cannot be overstated and when future generations measure his voluminous career, they may be forced to conclude “the immortal” is a myth conjured by their grandparents to shame the piddling portfolios of contemporary musicians. Take comfort in the knowledge that your life overlapped his, and revel in the joy only attainable in understanding that the legend is real.
“Cancer, well fuck” is all that needs to be said
Damn! That’s exactly how I feel.
Coincidence?
http://gizmodo.com/rumors-are-flying-that-we-may-have-finally-found-gravit-1752259868
Love you Wil. You’re the only one who’s said it right. Thank you.
I feel that we are fortunate to have lived in the time of Bowie and am saddened that my son will not. He’ll here the music played but never really understand what an icon Bowie was.
While I will feel sad at his passing I also smile at the memories and feelings that his music stir.
What else can be said, we are all in disbelief, God speed David Bowie, you will stay immortal through your art and in my heart forever
I was in shock for a while. More greats keep going away and I keep chugging along.
It makes me hug my husband & my cats just a little bit tighter. This mortality is a fleeting thing and it goes so fast.
It was like waking up to find out a mountain wasn’t there anymore. The mind can’t comprehend it.
I read the news late Sunday night, maybe an hour after it was first reported. (FUCK) It was the last thing I read before I fell asleep. (NO.FUCK.) I lay the tablet on the bedside table and I blew out the candle. (DAMN IT.) I woke up this morning and it was the first thought I had. I was dreaming, It was all my twisted imagination. Fucking hell, brain. What a shitty dream.
And then I read the news. I’ve been in this strange fugue state all day. I can’t imagine a world without David Bowie in it. I just can’t wrap my head around it. He was supposed to outlive us all. Just…. fuck.
Dammit, Wil. I’m still mad at you for one of your other posts that I found really tone-deaf and privileged – but this is just. You said it better than anyone else I’ve seen discuss it. There are constants in life that you take for granted, and yes, the music is still here, but it’s just not the same.
I’m heterosexual and cisgender, but I cannot tell you just how many friends I have who credit David Bowie with saving their lives. He let everyone know it was okay to be who they are. And that, even more than the amazing music, is worth its weight in gold. People are alive today because of him.
Urgh, this is what happens when I type too fast. I meant to say that I have many gay, trans and/or generally weird friends who felt that way about Bowie.
Have you heard his final album, Blackstar? It came out three days ago. And it’s…I think it might actually be from the future. A fitting farewell from a man who was always at least 20 years ahead of everybody, and stayed there until the end.
He’ll always be my Goblin King, kicking his minions and making babies giggle. Goodbye Starman <3
I had the same reaction to David Bowie’s passing. Somehow, he just seemed eternally healthy and young; not the type to be struck down by such a despicable disease. I think he had a good life and made a trail for artists and everyday people to be different. He was extremely creative, intelligent and kind. A real class act.
I’m in the camp that says he returned to his home planet. Because death.. cancer.. david bowie.. cannot and should not exist within the same sentence in the english language. Its not possible.
Pain and sadness.
A day and a half later, I’m still trying to keep my heart from spilling out of my aching chest about this. It can’t happen yet, but it’s already happened. I’m glad not to be alone in it, though.
It still seems very surreal to me. To many of us, David Bowie was larger than life – and still is in our hearts and minds. He was a true original, never being afraid of being unique. As someone else said, he made us comfortable with our sexuality, even after he made us question our sexuality. There is always a song in his repertoire for every mood and every thought. Even though he has left us, parts of him will always remain with us every time we hear him sing another song, or show up in a movie we watch………..he will always be there for us.