Speaker 1: Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of Off the Record.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Jordan Runtug, Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Our latest chapter followed David Bowie in the late sixties,
Speaker 1: a thrilling, colorful time when his creativity soared to new heights.
Speaker 1: After facing half a decade of near constant rejection from
Speaker 1: the mainstream music industry, David had started to rebel. Instead
Speaker 1: of chasing pop hits, he embraced the avant garde arts
Speaker 1: scene that was beginning to blossom in London. He famously
Speaker 1: studied mime under the Great Lindsey Kemp, crucial training that
Speaker 1: would enhance his skills as an evocative theatrical live performer.
Speaker 1: Another key figure in this period was Mary Finnegan, David's
Speaker 1: friend lover and someone unusually his landlord. Their meeting is
Speaker 1: a touching reminder of the open hearted hippie ethos of
Speaker 1: the time. David had been visiting friends who lived out
Speaker 1: in a sleepy London suburb of Beckenham. Mary, a neighbor,
Speaker 1: heard David's strumming his guitar and invited him in for
Speaker 1: a cup of tea. By the time their cups were cleared,
Speaker 1: she had invited him to move into the spare room
Speaker 1: of her apartment. It was a warm beginning of their
Speaker 1: creatively fruitful union. A journalist by day, Mary was deeply
Speaker 1: involved with the London underground scene, a vibrant community of
Speaker 1: artists and activists looking to shape the populace out of
Speaker 1: their spiritual complacency. Together, she and David formed the Folk
Speaker 1: Club at a local pub called the Three Tons, transforming
Speaker 1: the back room every Sunday into a mini hate Ashburrier
Speaker 1: Greenwich Village coffeehouse. They took their cues from the arts
Speaker 1: labs for alternative arts centers that had begun in central London,
Speaker 1: bringing their far out ideas from the capital to the country.
Speaker 1: David soaked up the stimulating creative atmosphere. It freed his mind.
Speaker 1: Innovative new songs began to pour out of him, some
Speaker 1: of which would find a home on breakthroughs like Hunky
Speaker 1: Dorry and Space Oddity. More than just searching for his sound,
Speaker 1: David also sought his spiritual path. He and Mary were
Speaker 1: both deeply immersed in Tibetan Buddhism and meditation practices. David
Speaker 1: had studied under the Llama himmy Rimposh and spent time
Speaker 1: in a monastery in Scotland. He briefly considered becoming a monk,
Speaker 1: but ultimately the music one out. Mary is still a
Speaker 1: writer and still passionate about Buddhism. She most recently published
Speaker 1: a book called Sex and Violence and Tibetan Buddhism, The
Speaker 1: Rise and Fall of Sung y'all Riposh. She also recorded
Speaker 1: her electrifying period with Bowie in a two thousand sixteen memoir,
Speaker 1: the perfectly titled Psychedelic Suburbia, which I highly recommend. I
Speaker 1: was lucky enough to speak with Mary recently. I'm grateful
Speaker 1: for her time, her help, her memories, and her meditation advice.
Speaker 1: I hope you find it helpful too. I guess just
Speaker 1: to begin, tell me about yourself in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: you're living and backing them, working as a journalist. How
Speaker 1: evolved were you with the emerging alternative culture? Very involved.
Speaker 1: I was absolutely the mainstream journalist in nineteen eight Um.
Speaker 1: I happen to get caught up when I was undercover
Speaker 1: investigating the drug scene in London. I got caught up
Speaker 1: in a bust and I had a very small quantity
Speaker 1: of of dope on me in my handbag, which I
Speaker 1: immediately handed over to the cops and explained why I
Speaker 1: was there that that was, and nobody really understood what
Speaker 1: was going on at the time. The place where I
Speaker 1: was had a very large dealing scene, with keyloads of
Speaker 1: everything and thousands of LSD trips, so I was kind
Speaker 1: of lumped in with these, and I think when I
Speaker 1: finally came to trial, the judge and the lawyer that
Speaker 1: I had originally briefed on this simply didn't know what
Speaker 1: they were dealing with and they couldn't tell the pens
Speaker 1: between a thirty five millionaiter film canister of grass and
Speaker 1: the key loads of hash ege that were found in
Speaker 1: that house. So I was given a nine month prison sentence,
Speaker 1: of which I served nine weeks before I got an
Speaker 1: absolute discharge on appeal. Before I ran to jail, and
Speaker 1: during and after, I'd made a lot of friends in
Speaker 1: the notting Hill Gate, West London, North London alternative scene,
Speaker 1: which was just emerging into all its glory in those days.
Speaker 1: The freaks they appeased, the wonderful psychedelic era, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they were much more interesting than anybody I knew in
Speaker 1: journalism much more fun, much more exciting. And so when
Speaker 1: I came out as a prison I was offered a
Speaker 1: job at the Sunday Times, and I was offered one
Speaker 1: of the daily express. The Sunday Times was Fashion, which
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do, and the dead expressive Future Righting,
Speaker 1: which I thought would be okay but which actually turned
Speaker 1: out to be gruesome. And I lasted about more, maybe
Speaker 1: six months, and after that I just said, no, thank you,
Speaker 1: I can't do this, and so I went feelance and
Speaker 1: basically took a five year holiday from the five day week.
Speaker 1: And I was by that time very well immersed in
Speaker 1: the psychedelic culture. One morning, I mean this is all
Speaker 1: in the book, I was sitting on my patio and
Speaker 1: my ground floor flat and having ingested some tincture of cannabis,
Speaker 1: and I heard this wonderful music playing from the top
Speaker 1: floor flat, which had a window open. It was March
Speaker 1: and the weather was quite bal meat for that time
Speaker 1: of year, and m I sort of called up and said,
Speaker 1: who's that singing? Playing some very interesting chord changes on
Speaker 1: the guitar. I thought, this is not your usual strumming
Speaker 1: sweet chord amateur, and um, this sort of pale slightly
Speaker 1: snotting those head poked out of the window with a
Speaker 1: pale of bomb curls around it, and said it's me
Speaker 1: and David. How are you? And said I'm married and
Speaker 1: I'm fine, and I like to all music and would
Speaker 1: you like to come downstairs and try my teacher of cannabis.
Speaker 1: So he did, and we had a very nice time together,
Speaker 1: talked a lot and found that we had a lot
Speaker 1: in common. And um, in a fit of sort of
Speaker 1: spontaneous generosity, he said, I've got the spare bedroom you'd
Speaker 1: like to move in, And he was living with his
Speaker 1: parents after having split up his girlfriend Hamione. Um, and
Speaker 1: so if you said yes, please, And so a couple
Speaker 1: of days later he turned up on the doorsteps. How
Speaker 1: did his arrival all to your life? I know in
Speaker 1: your book? He said, he didn't exactly travel light, No, no, no.
Speaker 1: Initially it was just him and the case source, rucksack
Speaker 1: whatever and the twelve sting Gibson, which I think he'd
Speaker 1: been gifted by Pete Townsend. And about a week later
Speaker 1: there was a knock at the door and there was
Speaker 1: a friend of his with the truck parked outside, and
Speaker 1: the friend unloaded. Um, some large speakers, some amplifiers, a
Speaker 1: couple of tape decks and mic stands, and various other
Speaker 1: boxes of wires and gizmos and peddles and you name
Speaker 1: it into my hallway to the extent that my kids
Speaker 1: couldn't actually get from their beddings of the loo um.
Speaker 1: You know, this course a little bit of consternation in
Speaker 1: the family unit, because basically, although I was very altransitive
Speaker 1: at that time, I was also very bourgeois in the
Speaker 1: way that I made sure that the kids had a
Speaker 1: proper family life, and that they went to school and
Speaker 1: not fed, and that their needs were met. So this
Speaker 1: created a bit of a problem because really, you know,
Speaker 1: all this stuff certainly wouldn't go into his room, which
Speaker 1: was actually quite small. So we had to have a conference,
Speaker 1: and it went in what used to be the banning room,
Speaker 1: which was now a sort of chill out room with
Speaker 1: mattresses and cushions and their small low table and a
Speaker 1: big Hi fi and a lot of records, and there
Speaker 1: was some room in there, so the rest of it
Speaker 1: went in there. It just, I mean, he had an
Speaker 1: incredible map of being able to take over with of
Speaker 1: actually making me feel resentful, a very charming person. Indeed,
Speaker 1: in those days I was entranced by him, and the
Speaker 1: kids liked him too, so they adapted very quickly to
Speaker 1: this change in our circumstances, and they thoroughly enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: And David was very productive, and he spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time writing songs and working them out and playing
Speaker 1: them and then saying to us in a sort of
Speaker 1: slightly diffident manner, like, what new song would you like
Speaker 1: to hear it? And the answer was always yes, pleasingly
Speaker 1: and if it was always wow, that was rather good. Um,
Speaker 1: so it was time it was really nice. Are there
Speaker 1: any songs that you hear now and you think, oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, I remember hearing that when it was just
Speaker 1: a germ of an idea. Wow, Yeah, that does happen.
Speaker 1: But you see, I don't listen to that very much nowadays. UM.
Speaker 1: I have to confess that I am not a huge
Speaker 1: Bowie fan. There's a lot of his music that I
Speaker 1: really like, particularly the early albums, not the first one,
Speaker 1: but the one he wrote when he was living with us,
Speaker 1: and Hunky Dorry and The Man Who Sold the World
Speaker 1: and the Z I like all those, but then asked
Speaker 1: to that I really kind of you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know what it was. There were some wonderful songs that
Speaker 1: were individual tracks as I liked, but I'm a much
Speaker 1: more under and grateful Dead Birds West Coast, The Who
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones to Be Eating was all that psychedelic
Speaker 1: era that was much more Crosby Stills, et cetera. All
Speaker 1: of those were the ones that I really loved. And
Speaker 1: then I absolutely totally and my David Bowie's expertise in
Speaker 1: all areas of his career. I think he was a
Speaker 1: genius and there's no question about that, but it's whether
Speaker 1: it actually that particular way of presenting things fix the
Speaker 1: individual music is very particular, and for me it doesn't.
Speaker 1: When you knew him and we're listening to him writing songs,
Speaker 1: did you think that he was destined for for you know,
Speaker 1: what was to come, this superstartom to come? Or was
Speaker 1: that not even you know, on anyone's radar at that point.
Speaker 1: I was certainly not online, but I did realize that
Speaker 1: he was a very talented musician. And as you probably know,
Speaker 1: we started the folk club together at a local pub
Speaker 1: on or Sunday night. And as soon as he started
Speaker 1: doing that, so he didn't have any geeks and he
Speaker 1: didn't have any money when he had a few gigs
Speaker 1: want or two and my twelve year old daughter roaded
Speaker 1: for him once when he was doing a king um
Speaker 1: you know, I blanked so off school for the day um.
Speaker 1: But he had a lot of time to prepare for
Speaker 1: the Sunday mats at the Feet Stub and he made
Speaker 1: a very very good job of it. It was totally
Speaker 1: professional and the people that he invited to sort of
Speaker 1: do the headlining, he always did a long set and
Speaker 1: he compared it um uh. And it was almost instantaneously,
Speaker 1: wildly successful, and we turned it into a psychedelic camping
Speaker 1: in the back of the pub on back in the
Speaker 1: high street and if you're I don't suppose you know,
Speaker 1: back in the the typical South London suburb and um
Speaker 1: deeply boring really, so this was something that the local
Speaker 1: community and particularly young ones, were absolutely entranced by and
Speaker 1: loved it. And it was from about week three it
Speaker 1: was absolutely jampacked. It couldn't get in the door and
Speaker 1: David and I initially did it to have a little
Speaker 1: bit of money, but we were sharing it with the
Speaker 1: couple in the upstairs trap were friends APIs and of mine.
Speaker 1: The four of us did it together, so we were
Speaker 1: not actually getting more than you know, basically drinks, money
Speaker 1: and maybe a little bit over for some food, but
Speaker 1: certainly nothing spectacular. And then at a certain point said
Speaker 1: to David one evening, do you think we should turn
Speaker 1: the Pholt Club into an arts up And he said,
Speaker 1: not a bad idea, because he was a polymath. He
Speaker 1: wasn't just a musician, he was an actor. He like
Speaker 1: he did all the posters for the Sunday most of
Speaker 1: them anyway, And if he kind of interest in the
Speaker 1: visual arts so and poetry and literature, he was very
Speaker 1: open and curious. And I think that was one of
Speaker 1: the most remarkable things about David throughout his life, was
Speaker 1: his insatiable curiosity for new forms of inspiration and pleasure.
Speaker 1: So anyway, we asked the audience at the next Sunday
Speaker 1: night would you like this to become an art slab?
Speaker 1: And they all stood up and cheered and said yes.
Speaker 1: And the Conservatory became a showcase for all the local artists,
Speaker 1: poster makers, puppeteers, beads and jewelry and books and prints
Speaker 1: and paintings and absolutely everything you could think of, and
Speaker 1: people came and stood up, and because you know the
Speaker 1: fact tub tradition, people just turned up. I say can
Speaker 1: I do a couple of numbers? And it says, well, yes,
Speaker 1: of course there's there any good they can come back.
Speaker 1: If they're not, they can't. Basically, I think between June
Speaker 1: and oct November it flourished and not just the young people,
Speaker 1: but all of Beckenham ended up being drawn into it
Speaker 1: because we used to do street theater on a Saturday
Speaker 1: morning through the high Street when everybody was doing their shopping.
Speaker 1: So we were unavoidable, right, these rarely weird, bizarre people
Speaker 1: dressed in very exchange very strange things and are very
Speaker 1: very conservative suburb. And then we did the Free Festival
Speaker 1: in August and um, it was the most beautiful day
Speaker 1: that anybody could possibly experience. It was magical and wonderful.
Speaker 1: And you may know David's memory of the Free Festival
Speaker 1: do you yes? I do? It was a beautiful song.
Speaker 1: He was not very happy because his dad had died
Speaker 1: a few days earlier, so he was in deep mourning
Speaker 1: because he loved his dad very much. He was grief stricken. Um,
Speaker 1: but he played, you know, he was the thorough professional
Speaker 1: and he did his job, and um, nobody would have
Speaker 1: known when he was on the stage, but when he
Speaker 1: was not on the stage, he was a very grumpy
Speaker 1: and unpleasant person. But we all knew why, and we
Speaker 1: certainly didn't hold it against How did you first come
Speaker 1: to write your book? How did you decide the time
Speaker 1: was right? It was really um. I was talking to
Speaker 1: Angie at one stage, I think on Skype, and this
Speaker 1: is Angie Bowie, David's future wife that your friends with.
Speaker 1: We've been through periods when we've been good friends, and
Speaker 1: we've been through period is when we have not really
Speaker 1: wanted to know each other yet the moment we're are
Speaker 1: good friend. Once um I said to her, don't you
Speaker 1: think we should record the time in Beckenham because it
Speaker 1: was so unique and it was really the crucible where
Speaker 1: David refined his talent. It was the arts lab where
Speaker 1: he first acquired a following and made that following stick
Speaker 1: with him and made it grow. And of course it
Speaker 1: was while he was still living in Beckenham that he
Speaker 1: made his breakthrough with Ziggy and and she said, yeah,
Speaker 1: not bad idea. What do you want to call it?
Speaker 1: And I said it would have to be psychedelic suburbia,
Speaker 1: and she immediately went off the idea because to her
Speaker 1: it was not that the art side and the psychedelic
Speaker 1: stuff that happened before she came on the scene. She
Speaker 1: did overlap with it. It was the time when she
Speaker 1: was there and they were all living at Trampton Hall
Speaker 1: and David wrote A Man Who Sold the World and
Speaker 1: Hunky Dory and they didn't sold very well. They're sold,
Speaker 1: but not reallytely. And then Angie and Freddie Burretti, between
Speaker 1: them and David with the music, they actually created ZDDY
Speaker 1: and it was Angie styling that made that happen. It
Speaker 1: was her way of, you know, just being a little
Speaker 1: bit more outrageous than anybody else around. And um, that's
Speaker 1: the story aroun Angie's life. So the idea that I
Speaker 1: wanted to focus on that the outside period didn't really
Speaker 1: work for her, and so she said, that's your idea,
Speaker 1: you do it. So I did, and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: they've been an awful lot of Barrier books, but nobody
Speaker 1: has really gone into detail and recorded the time when
Speaker 1: he moved from Bromley to Beckenham and then onwards and
Speaker 1: out into the big wave world. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: do the Beckenham art snap and that period, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to make a sort of chronicle record of it
Speaker 1: so that it's there. And that's why I did it,
Speaker 1: mostly because it was being ignored. Most of the books
Speaker 1: and most of the moves, most of the documentaries just
Speaker 1: get edited out. The art sad they barely mentioned it.
Speaker 1: It was just seem as kind of like, O, well,
Speaker 1: you know, he did a hippie thing for a bit,
Speaker 1: moved on. It was not like that at all, and
Speaker 1: so it really discredits it. So I thought I put
Speaker 1: it on record, So that's what I did. And it's
Speaker 1: been a very interesting time since that book was published
Speaker 1: because it got massive publicity because just before you Don't
Speaker 1: need I was in huge demand to know, do interviews.
Speaker 1: On the day that he died, I was one of
Speaker 1: the most intense days of my entire life. Um. But
Speaker 1: the book is a record of a period which to
Speaker 1: me has got more significance than pretty well anything that
Speaker 1: happened since. Do you remember the last time you saw him? Yes?
Speaker 1: I do, yes, it was the party that they gave
Speaker 1: hat happen all after the Earl's Court City concept, and
Speaker 1: it's had more off he had morphed from being you know,
Speaker 1: a lad from the suburbs into a major rock star.
Speaker 1: And the people who came to that party were exactly
Speaker 1: the sort of people that who would expect right musical executives,
Speaker 1: the glitterati, and and they were awful. I mean, I
Speaker 1: just hate being around those people and mean insincere yash
Speaker 1: bladder bladder, flapper flapper and darling. And you know, I
Speaker 1: enjoyed the party. It was really quite good fun. And
Speaker 1: then when it came time to leave, David was wearing
Speaker 1: his ziddy costume. Um. He walked to the front boort
Speaker 1: with us with his arm around my shoulders and he said, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a wonderful woman there, I Finnigan, I will never
Speaker 1: forget you, and gave me a kiss and a hug.
Speaker 1: And that was the last time I ever spoke to him.
Speaker 1: Is there a memory that you think of with David
Speaker 1: that still makes you smile or laugh to the stay?
Speaker 1: I supposed the seduction was probably the most entertaining bit.
Speaker 1: I just watched sticks in my mind because I knew
Speaker 1: that he was going to go there before it actually did,
Speaker 1: and I was very I was totally willing um, but
Speaker 1: he did it so beautifully. I've done a shift at
Speaker 1: the Sunday times and I came back and I was
Speaker 1: always quite tired because it was very full long, and
Speaker 1: he had supper for me, a very very nice supper,
Speaker 1: which was extremely rare. He normally, you know, I always
Speaker 1: did the cooking or the kids threw something together. But
Speaker 1: he cooked a very lovely supper for me, with a
Speaker 1: nice bottle of white wine and then a couple of
Speaker 1: nice clifts, and then we went into his room and
Speaker 1: he put cushions the floor, m in a sort of nest,
Speaker 1: you know, and he put these two big speakers one
Speaker 1: either side of me and settled me into this and
Speaker 1: then played me his favorite music through these enormous speakers.
Speaker 1: And I remember the one piece that really got to
Speaker 1: be was Jimmy Hendrix of the Phasing. I can't remember
Speaker 1: which album of Hendrix it was, but when it went
Speaker 1: goes all the way around the room from one speaker
Speaker 1: to the other and then back again, and I was
Speaker 1: absolutely I've never heard that before, the really good stereo.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so yeah, one thing led to another obviously.
Speaker 1: That was the you know, the seduction. It was delightful.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you more about David's devotion to
Speaker 1: Tibetan Buddhism, because it sounds like that was a significant
Speaker 1: part of his life around this period. I know in
Speaker 1: later years said that he considered taking his house and
Speaker 1: going up to the to the monastery in Scotland and
Speaker 1: becoming a monk. I'm not sure how true that is,
Speaker 1: but it's true. We talked about Buddhism quite a bit
Speaker 1: during our firesight chants which were went on into the
Speaker 1: Resmall lives. He had definitely was, as always, I think,
Speaker 1: ahead of the curve, and that he was interested in
Speaker 1: Tibetan Buddhism before it became trendy, before it caught on,
Speaker 1: and he met this lama called Jimmy Rimbuchet, and Jimmy
Speaker 1: talked to Meditation and introduced him to Tibetan Buddhism, and
Speaker 1: David took it very seriously. Before I had any knowledge
Speaker 1: of him, he had been to Samuel in Scotland, which
Speaker 1: was the first Tibetan center in the West, and he
Speaker 1: had stayed there for quite some time, and I think
Speaker 1: the idea of becoming a monk, becoming ordained, had cost
Speaker 1: his mind. He certainly mentioned that to me, but he
Speaker 1: never really shook off the music, and he said it
Speaker 1: interrupted his meditation. It was with him when he was
Speaker 1: out walking, and at a certain point he realized that
Speaker 1: he wasn't being true to himself, and so he just
Speaker 1: went back to London and picked up his career. And
Speaker 1: that was before I met him, but I think it
Speaker 1: was quite soon before I met him, and we talked
Speaker 1: about it a lot, and it was already resonating for
Speaker 1: me because the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Bardo
Speaker 1: the Dol, to give it its correct title, was kind
Speaker 1: of required reading amongst the psychedelically leaked. I had already
Speaker 1: read it and thought that it was magnificent and was
Speaker 1: interested anyway, and I'd done a bit of zen meditation,
Speaker 1: so I was very interested in what he had to
Speaker 1: tell me about this, and I read up a lot
Speaker 1: more and I met Jimmy. Jimmy came and did a
Speaker 1: gig with us in the Bromley Arts Center um where
Speaker 1: we had one sort of avant garde ensemble who played
Speaker 1: at the few times they played, and then Jimmy gave
Speaker 1: a talk on Buddhism. And this was a very posh,
Speaker 1: very very beautiful house with a garden around it and
Speaker 1: sort of parquet floors and a grand piano and in
Speaker 1: a gilt chairs. It was all quite proper, but we
Speaker 1: managed to pull it off, which was quite surprising considering
Speaker 1: that by us the three times was a ramble. But anyway,
Speaker 1: what we were invited back. Meditation is something that I've
Speaker 1: really struggled with. I want to incorporated into my life,
Speaker 1: and maybe people listening do too, But I really struggle
Speaker 1: with stopping my mind and stopping the thoughts and just
Speaker 1: quieting everything down. How do you transcend that? Do you
Speaker 1: have any advice for people just starting out and really
Speaker 1: struggling with meditation. It's perseverance. You really have to be
Speaker 1: very kind to yourself and not get frustrated by the
Speaker 1: thoughts as they arise. Um and the What seems to
Speaker 1: work for me is that you have two be aware
Speaker 1: of whoever thought comes from and where it goes to,
Speaker 1: and without giving too much away, because you don't want
Speaker 1: to give people preconceptions about what choice at once you
Speaker 1: understand that, but there's really nothing. Where had it come from?
Speaker 1: Where is it going to? You know? There ain't nothing,
Speaker 1: There's nothing there. They have no solid form, They do
Speaker 1: not have a base and they do not have a destination.
Speaker 1: So once you get the hang of being a little
Speaker 1: bit more observant of the thoughts, because they will always
Speaker 1: be there, but you will begin to be able to
Speaker 1: access the gaps between them, and that's when it starts
Speaker 1: to get interesting. It's where you find that meditation has
Speaker 1: some value because suddenly that mental chatter slows down a lot,
Speaker 1: and you get a sense of calm and you understand
Speaker 1: how it's possible to act access a different level of energy,
Speaker 1: and it gets to the point where you want to
Speaker 1: be able to do that more effectively. And then you
Speaker 1: need a really skilled and experienced teacher because very few
Speaker 1: people can take it any further than that without help,
Speaker 1: because it is down to the skill and experience of
Speaker 1: the teacher to guide you through those processes. Because it's
Speaker 1: very easy to say I can't do this, I've got
Speaker 1: too much of a busy head, you know, and most
Speaker 1: people have. But eventually it is possible to have a
Speaker 1: much less busy head, and the value of that becomes
Speaker 1: very obvious when you get the hang of it. Um Now,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to take this step further, I would
Speaker 1: suggest looking up Tara Mandala dot org and it's run
Speaker 1: by my friend Sortier Madrionium Lama sim in um Okay.
Speaker 1: It's Corpagosa Springs in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado.
Speaker 1: And I don't know anybody who is better at helping
Speaker 1: people to get started and be motivated than Saltian. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for sharing that you're speaking of people's
Speaker 1: spiritual journeys. What do you think David was looking for
Speaker 1: in a spiritual practices and his music, which I'm sure
Speaker 1: is an extension of a spiritual practices, Well, I think yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, the boiler line between art and and and
Speaker 1: contemplation is so fine, it's like a fine embrane. I
Speaker 1: think that that David was always looking for something that
Speaker 1: was so far over into the left field that accessing
Speaker 1: it was a new inspiration. I think he went through
Speaker 1: a period in his career when he was very repetitive
Speaker 1: and and really didn't bother too much. He just churned
Speaker 1: out a whole bunch of stuff more or less, you know,
Speaker 1: because that's what you do when you're a famous rock star.
Speaker 1: But some of his work, I mean, you can tell
Speaker 1: from the nature of it that he is really exploring
Speaker 1: an extraordinary range of dimensions things very influenced by space
Speaker 1: travel and the cosmos, and very influenced by human quirks
Speaker 1: and idiosyncrasies and left field. I mean, Lindsay Kemp was
Speaker 1: a huge influence on him and very much beloved. And
Speaker 1: I adored Lindsay and met him through David and he
Speaker 1: became very good friends. And then he was absolutely totally
Speaker 1: right out there on the sort of leading avant garde
Speaker 1: edge of art. I mean, he was a mine and
Speaker 1: that he was a dancer. He was just a holy
Speaker 1: and an absolutely totally inspirational person. I mean, I found
Speaker 1: Lindsay sort of operated in the way that he inspired
Speaker 1: people and ray as he got French people and they
Speaker 1: very stimulated alamos. He was definitely of a different league,
Speaker 1: a different order, and I think that David was too. Actually,
Speaker 1: I don't think there are many David Bowie's ever incarnate
Speaker 1: at any particular moment. I think they're very rare. Off
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