EAT, DRINK & DO MARY

Drinking With Bowie

We were drinking absinthe Red Bulls, as i expected. Dave (he asked me to call him that) and i had met earlier at one of his shows in a local gymnasium. Why was Bowie playing a gym? Well, it was one of those fancy two-tiered gymnasiums, where you could look down upon the action from the second level and throw things and spit, except everybody was on their best behaviour for Bowie; paper airplanes only. Upon informing us that he’s Afraid of Americans, he twirled and headed for the lobby, his longcoat creating a cool umbrella-ish shape in the motion. I ducked out and spied him chatting up some young girls that were obviously amused by his Labyrinth haircut. He was suave and quite affable, even as the girls didn’t appear to realize who he was. What a gent. I approached him, introduced myself, and mentioned that i was in attendance at his Prague concert where he had the on-stage heart attack, and commended his valiant effort to carry on that show for as long as possible afterwards. I told him that the fellas and i often do imitations of that moment in horrible brit-ish accents - “I’m sorry, i can’t go on. I’m in incredible pain.” He seemed quite taken aback at first, then abruptly threw his head back with maniacal laughter and took me across the street for a slice of pepperoni and double cheese.