Let's All Reminisce About That Time When David Bowie Was a Nazi-Fascist

Bowie has played a lot of characters: Aladdin Sane, Ziggy Stadust, Goblin King. Arguably the weirdest (although “middle-aged dude with a goatee who hangs around Trent Reznor” is a close second) is the Thin White Duke, his mid-‘70s persona of a emotionally hollow, impeccably dressed gentleman cabaret singer of vaguely Aryan origin who was coked up out of his mind (although that element just might have been the real Bowie seeping through). As he told Roy Carr in Bowie: An Illustrated Record, it was drowning in those two things—a character, and blow—that led to David Bowie’s brief, ill-advised “Crazy Fascist” period, circa 1976. In discussing politics with a Stockholm newspaper, for some reason, he said that “Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader,” a Britain that was still a short 30 years removed from the London Blitz by the Germans in World War II. He was later detained on the border of Poland for possessing Nazi memorabilia, still illegal a short 30 years after the Germans decimated Poland and its Jewish population. Capping off the year, he arrived at a public appearance at Victoria Station in London riding in an open-topped convertible, parade-style, and also Hitler-style, making the good ol’ Nazi salute. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

While he was just deep in character, and not really a Nazi sympathizer, probably, it’s a a little alarming that all these kids showed up to do the Nazi salute back to Bowie, captured in video here, set to the also alarming German version of Bowie’s “Heroes.”

When Blossom Met C+C Music Factory

Awesome. Blossom.Despite media consolidation and relaxed rules on cross-promotion and product placement, you just don’t see a lot of heavily pushed, barely famous, or on their way down musical acts making cameo appearances on sitcoms, the way they did in the ’80s and ’90s. (Except for Disney acts on Disney Channel sitcoms. They are their own corporate and cultural universe, and I’m not 14.)  I’ve written about this before, as I heartily remember Stacey Q on The Facts of Life. Maybe there just aren’t any many cheesy sitcoms anymore, although I don’t rule out some assemblage of Kool and the Gang showing up to do “Too Hot” on Hot in Cleveland, or Toby Keith singing some smug, gross song about being a selfish asshole on Tim Allen’s new ABC show, Women are Stupid Bitches I Wish Were Dead.

Blossom’s dad on Blossom, Chip Blossom (probably) was a session musician and songwriter, so this show really dropped the ball on having cheesy musical guest stars. The only major one they could land was C+C Music Factory. On a 1992 episode, Blossom and her immoral friend Six camp out to see C+C Music Factory, which is weird considering it was about a year past that band’s prime, which was about six weeks in early 1991, and because the C + C in that band stand for the Robert Civilles and David Cole, the producers who made that band as a studio creation (like some kind of music factory), going so far as to hire Martha Wash of the Weather Girls to sing and then using the thinner, younger Zelma Davis to lip sync to her stuff in videos. In other words, C + C Music Factory was less legitimate a live musical act than, say, Joey Lawrence.

As such, they don’t perform on Blossom. Instead, Civilles, Cole, and Davis literally wander into the scene, wearing costumes that look like they were designed for a John Waters movie about evil Color Me Badd robots, to watch Blossom and Six awkwardly do some kind of embarrassing teenage herky-jerky Running Man-like dance to “Things That Make You Go Hmmm,” on a boombox they’re carrying around so as to listen to their own songs whenever they like. The scene is not completely performance-free; Davis sings the chorus along to the recorded version, and their voices notably do not match up.

In the '80s, There Was an Urban Legend That Said the UPC Code on "Thriller" Contained Michael Jackson's Phone Number

How quaint, right? “Universal product codes,” which made scanning for prices and inventory records computerized and thus more accurate, were introduced in the U.S. in 1974, but not widely adopted until the early 1980s. When Thriller came out in 1982, UPC codes were still relatively new and certainly strange and seemingly random, particularly on albums. In fact, the numbers are random, in that they’re randomly assigned. They’re not random in that they pertain to a single product or good. Which is to say it’s absurd and basically impossible that the UPC code for Thriller would correspond to Michael Jackson’s home phone number either by accident or on purpose. Nor would the extremely private and weird Michael Jackson ever do such a thing as invite the 29 million people who bought the album an open invitation to just call him up at home randomly. And also, the UPC code for Thriller was 12 digits long—a little too long to be a U.S. phone number. Such was the level of Michael Jackson hysteria at the time—its power transcended logic.

5 Pop and Rock Stars Who Probably Killed Someone

• C-Murder, brother/lookalike/employee to Master P, beat and shot a 16-year-old at a Louisiana club in 2002 and is currently in prison for life. Keepin’ it real and accurate, C-Murder.
 

• Blues legend Lead Belly killed a cousin over a woman in 1918 and served seven years in prison.
 

• Phil Spector is serving 19 years to life for the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson.

• Jim Gordon, the drummer for Delaney & Bonnie and Derek and the Dominoes (he wrote the sweeping piano outro of “Layla”), was an undiagnosed schizophrenic and murdered his mother in 1983 with a hammer and a kitchen knife. He was sentenced to 16 years to life. He’s still in prison.
 

• Johnny Rodriguez, the 1970s and ‘80s country star, shot a man on his property in Texas he thought was a burglar. He beat the rap, because Texas.
 

The Eerily Correlated Life Highlights and Singles Discography of Nick Lachey

2002: Marries fake-dumb or possibly really dumb pop singer Jessica Simpson

2003: Releases his first solo single, “Shut Up”
 

2003: Signs lucrative deal for MTV reality series Newlyweds

2003: “This I Swear”

2005: Simpson files for divorces

2006: “What’s Left of Me”
 

2006: “I Can’t Hate You Anymore”

2006: “Resolution”