Real Life Parallels
Dec. 17th, 2004 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vardathemessagescript:
MANDY
(voice-over)
Now: just because someone sees, you know –
FAST RETURN TO:
INT. DIVE BAR – NEW YORK – DAY – 1984
Arthur, jolted back to the present.
MANDY
(facetious)
- two naked people asleep in bed together ... it doesn’t necessarily prove sex was involved.
FAST CUT TO:
INT. BEDROOM SUITE – NEW YORK – DAY – 1973
Brian and Curt in bed, tangled and naked, dead asleep.
Shannon looks through a crack in the door.
MANDY
(voice-over)
It does, however, make for a very strong case.
This line from Mandy embodies the essence of the film – it sums up the whole shebang from the fan's point of view. Despite all the press about both Brian Slade and David Bowie, our knowledge about their real lives is, of course, limited. The publicity machines behind them pique our curiosity but then at some point they have to shut the door. Left to imagining the lives of our idols, we devour any information, unsubstantiated or not, to fill in the blanks. They create an interest in us for their music, we decipher their lyrics, read their interviews. How can we not be tempted to scan the paparazzi photos and the gossip columns. But no source can have juicier, first hand information than the ex-wife. Angela Bowie's revelation about finding her husband in bed with Mick Jagger caused this story to assume legendary proportions in the annals of rock and roll gossip. As she explains at length in her book, Backstage Passes, people in London crashed at their friends' flats all the time. But she must have known, of course, that she'd cause a sensation.
"Perhaps that's why a furor of publicity erupted when, as a guest on Joan Rivers's talk show, I mentioned that one morning on Oakley Street I came upon David and Mick sharing a bed.
I had just flown back to London from New York. I entered the house and went into the kitchen, and Daniella told me, "I think Mick and David are asleep upstairs."
I said, "Oh, okay," and went and opened the bedroom door, and there indeed they were, asleep in our bed. I asked them if they wanted coffee, and they said yes. And that was that.
There are two ways of looking at that incident. One was that it was just a thoroughly normal London scene: Best friends stagger home drunk or stoned from some night spot or party or whatever, strip off their clothes somehow, and fall into bed and pass out. Morning comes, wife arrives with wake-up beverage, hangover begins, life resumes.
But oh, no. Joan Rivers, and her studio and TV audience, and every gossip columnist in the world, leaped straight to the other obvious conclusion, which is that since Mick Jagger had been found in bed with David Bowie, Mick must be (gasp!) gay or, even worse, (faint!) bisexual!
Well, leaving aside the question of why on earth that should have been news to anyone who'd paid any attention to the Stones' affairs, particularly the convoluted girlfriend-swapping and buddy-bonding among Mick, Keith, and Brian before Brian ended up in that swimming pool, I really don't like the automatic assumption that if two men are found in bed together, something sexual must be happening. That's so square, so typically American.
On the other hand, however, I think the assumption was correct. Or to put it another way, when I walked into that room and found Mick and David together, I felt absolutely dead certain that they'd been screwing. It was so obvious, in fact, that I never even considered the possibility that they hadn't been screwing. The way they'd been running around together and the way David made a virtual religion of slipping the Lance of Love into almost everyone around him, and then the fact that Mick had a perfectly good bed of his own just three hundred yards away from where he was passed out naked with David -- it all added up inescapably in my head as well as my gut. I didn't have to look around for open jars of K-Y jelly.
Maybe I should have, because then my eyes would have seen the proof of what I knew in my heart. But I didn't, so I can't say conclusively that those two alley cats were actually going at it that night. While they were still awake together in my bed, I wasn't there."
Now: just because someone sees, you know –
FAST RETURN TO:
INT. DIVE BAR – NEW YORK – DAY – 1984
Arthur, jolted back to the present.
- two naked people asleep in bed together ... it doesn’t necessarily prove sex was involved.
FAST CUT TO:
INT. BEDROOM SUITE – NEW YORK – DAY – 1973
Brian and Curt in bed, tangled and naked, dead asleep.
Shannon looks through a crack in the door.
It does, however, make for a very strong case.
This line from Mandy embodies the essence of the film – it sums up the whole shebang from the fan's point of view. Despite all the press about both Brian Slade and David Bowie, our knowledge about their real lives is, of course, limited. The publicity machines behind them pique our curiosity but then at some point they have to shut the door. Left to imagining the lives of our idols, we devour any information, unsubstantiated or not, to fill in the blanks. They create an interest in us for their music, we decipher their lyrics, read their interviews. How can we not be tempted to scan the paparazzi photos and the gossip columns. But no source can have juicier, first hand information than the ex-wife. Angela Bowie's revelation about finding her husband in bed with Mick Jagger caused this story to assume legendary proportions in the annals of rock and roll gossip. As she explains at length in her book, Backstage Passes, people in London crashed at their friends' flats all the time. But she must have known, of course, that she'd cause a sensation.
"Perhaps that's why a furor of publicity erupted when, as a guest on Joan Rivers's talk show, I mentioned that one morning on Oakley Street I came upon David and Mick sharing a bed.
I had just flown back to London from New York. I entered the house and went into the kitchen, and Daniella told me, "I think Mick and David are asleep upstairs."
I said, "Oh, okay," and went and opened the bedroom door, and there indeed they were, asleep in our bed. I asked them if they wanted coffee, and they said yes. And that was that.
There are two ways of looking at that incident. One was that it was just a thoroughly normal London scene: Best friends stagger home drunk or stoned from some night spot or party or whatever, strip off their clothes somehow, and fall into bed and pass out. Morning comes, wife arrives with wake-up beverage, hangover begins, life resumes.
But oh, no. Joan Rivers, and her studio and TV audience, and every gossip columnist in the world, leaped straight to the other obvious conclusion, which is that since Mick Jagger had been found in bed with David Bowie, Mick must be (gasp!) gay or, even worse, (faint!) bisexual!
Well, leaving aside the question of why on earth that should have been news to anyone who'd paid any attention to the Stones' affairs, particularly the convoluted girlfriend-swapping and buddy-bonding among Mick, Keith, and Brian before Brian ended up in that swimming pool, I really don't like the automatic assumption that if two men are found in bed together, something sexual must be happening. That's so square, so typically American.
On the other hand, however, I think the assumption was correct. Or to put it another way, when I walked into that room and found Mick and David together, I felt absolutely dead certain that they'd been screwing. It was so obvious, in fact, that I never even considered the possibility that they hadn't been screwing. The way they'd been running around together and the way David made a virtual religion of slipping the Lance of Love into almost everyone around him, and then the fact that Mick had a perfectly good bed of his own just three hundred yards away from where he was passed out naked with David -- it all added up inescapably in my head as well as my gut. I didn't have to look around for open jars of K-Y jelly.
Maybe I should have, because then my eyes would have seen the proof of what I knew in my heart. But I didn't, so I can't say conclusively that those two alley cats were actually going at it that night. While they were still awake together in my bed, I wasn't there."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-17 03:12 pm (UTC)I've always been sort of fascinated by this little historical tid bit...it's so unknown, yet sort of decided. I think my mind likes to wander so the element of not knowing for sure helps that ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 05:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-17 03:16 pm (UTC)Angie, I still love ya baby...
Date: 2004-12-20 05:57 am (UTC)Re: Angie, I still love ya baby...
Date: 2004-12-20 03:34 pm (UTC)I love her lots!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-17 03:34 pm (UTC)-Glitter Nixon
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 05:50 am (UTC)And as fans, we can't imagine that two of the most desirable men in the world would not find each other desirable. What, are they on drugs or something?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-24 01:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-16 08:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-18 01:25 am (UTC)