Ha ha ha, hee hee hee…
This morning’s Observer here in the UK is worth every penny of the cover price, not just because it contains a free 5 track Blur CD with a couple of little gems on it, but also because it features an “interview” with David Bowie conducted by star of The Office, and XFM Superstar DJ, Ricky Gervais in the premier issue of The Observer Music Monthly.
Ricky is a long-term Bowie fan, and regular readers of these pages will know just how big a fan he is. As I told you a long time back, (can’t find the item right now) one of the first TV things Ricky did was a one-off comedy about a Bowie impersonator who ran a video retail franchise. The show, called Golden Years, was a kind of forerunner to The Office, and in it Ricky’s character would turn up to board meetings in full Aladdin Sane stage garb.
I have a tape of this show tucked away somewhere that I can’t locate right now, and I’ve been trying to get hold of a copy for David to view. So I called Ricky this morning who was on his way out to play tennis with a celebrity friend, a clue to the identity of that friend is that they were both filmed having a nice time together live on Fame Academy last night. Ricky did point out to me that they did both have their female partners in-tow, even if there was no visual evidence of that fact during the broadcast. Whatever, it’s none of my business.**
I’m digressing… Ricky tells me he was never 100% happy with the way Golden Years was presented, and for that reason he doesn’t actually own a tape of the show. As if to add some weight to his reason for not owning a copy he reckoned thus: “I bet you won’t find a copy of The Laughing Gnome in David Bowie’s house.”
Anyway, the Q & A in The Observer, (which was conducted via e-mail exchanges) is most entertaining and it can be found in it’s entirety on line
RG: What’s the point of what you do?
DB: To avoid boredom. And to express my disgust at a hostile but indifferent … No, that was what I said in 1968. To avoid boredom, then.
** Reading back over this paragraph, it appeared to me that my words could be misinterpreted. I would like to state now that I do not intend to give the impression that Ricky and his friend are anything other than vigorously heterosexual!