I'll be here for you. Also we should keep making weird art together in his memory

Thanks, it's still getting to me a lot. We absolutely should, Bowie's death has given me more resolve to keep being a weird artist. Of course, Bowie always gave me that resolve, but it just feels so much more important now than it ever was. He challenged us in Blackstar to take his place after he left, and now it's up to all of us to do that, and help to bring the alien other back to a humanity in turmoil. We owe it to him, and ourselves.

This is one of those deaths that just seems... weird. Like it still isn't sinking in. I don't know, maybe a lot of us expected Bowie to live forever, but perhaps that's a testament to his success as an artist who has immortalized himself in the hearts and minds of millions. What the fuck are we going to do now in a world without David Bowie?

Yeah, it didn't sink in on me until after I wrote this journal when I heard the news right after it happened. The next morning it hit me like a sledgehammer and I couldn't even go to work, I was so distraught. It was like losing my folks again for a few days. It's still getting to me but at least I can function again.

Bowie was a lot of things to a lot of people, and to a bisexual stoner artist furry who came of age in G.W.Bush-era Washington, DC and all of that crap, Bowie was the perfect medicine and antidote to living in that place at that time. Blasting "I'm Afraid of Americans" on the Army base I used to work at at the height of the Iraq war and pissing off high-ranking officers in the process (while being a civilian, of course) was one of hundreds of fond and crazy memories set to Bowie in my life (like smoking and rolling through the hood blasting "The Laughing Gnome", for instance). And, of course, without Bowie, I wouldn't have gotten into Brian Eno, and thus would not have gotten into synthesizers and my studio and all of that shit. But I digress...

Bowie made it okay to be really weird and artistic, and gave people like us a place in the world. He also proved that you shouldn't give a fuck about what people think you should do with your art/music/whatever, but to just do it. And to answer your question, Bowie himself gave us the message in Blackstar that it's up to us now to take his place, and to be the weird, creative, and visionary people that this world needs to help dislodge the shit that it has so firmly trapped itself in. So, in this new world without Bowie, I say we all step in to fill the gap wherever and however we can. I know I'll try to do my part with the weirdness. :)

"David Bowie - Low..." This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Warner Music Group.

"David Bowie - "HEROE..." This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Warner Music Group.

"David Bowie - Lodge..." This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Warner Music Group.