Dick Mac (alive!): Does David Bowie Really Know Who Dick Mac Is?

Friday, April 22, 2005

Does David Bowie Really Know Who Dick Mac Is?

David Bowie once said that the best thing about being David Bowie was having David Bowie fans. If you get the chance to see him interact with his fans, you will know he is completely sincere about it. He seems to remember every little tidbit about each person he's met and he is happy to make personal contact with as many of his fans as he can.

In the Autumn of 2003, I was invited to participate in an international live simulcast of a David Bowie interview being broadcast during half-time of his Reality show. The whole event was being staged via a satellite link. Very David Bowie.

I was in a movie theater in New York City with hundreds of David Bowie's closest personal friends. In theaters around the world, thousands more of his closest friends were gathered and one person in each theater would be asking a question via satellite. My question was to be the last.

We all sat and watched the first half of the concert and when the half-time show started, we saw a blank screen. There was no interview, no David Bowie, nothing. Inclement weather had disrupted the satellite link.

I was disappointed that I wouldn't get to chat with Bowie and ask a question, my friends were just as disappointed and all expressed their sympathy at the end of the event.

I forgot all about the whole thing until last December. My friend Liz contacted me and said she had a bootleg DVD of the event and almost fell off her chair when David Bowie laughed and said he knew who I was.

She sent me a copy of the DVD which turns out to be an English-language broadcast from Brazilian television with Portuguese subtitles.

Thanks to Frank, I finally got this snippet prepared for you to see.