He rides the subway. He makes instant coffee.

January 10, 2012 6:39 AM

Pictures of David Bowie doing normal stuff. Best experienced while listening to "Bowie's in Space" by Flight of the Conchords.

David Bowie doing other ordinary things (YouTube links):

Painting an angel
Juggling a dual career as 50s crooner and king of the Goblins.
Hanging out inside a di Chirico painting.
Wondering whether this jumper works on him.
Going to work on an egg.
Going for a run with his chum Trent Reznor.

posted by running order squabble fest (87 comments total)

Ha, I was just having a conversation last night on how we will have to come to terms with the fact that Bowie is mortal and will die someday.
posted by The Whelk at 6:41 AM on January 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

Bowie is mortal and will die someday.

Liar.
posted by kimdog at 6:43 AM on January 10, 2012 [32 favorites]

I wouldn't have thought it could be done, but that site made Bowie boring.
posted by etc. at 6:46 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Apparently, David Bowie and Jerry Seinfeld were the two people who bought DuoDocks.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:46 AM on January 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

Nothing Bowie does is normal, by definition.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 6:51 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

He plays football ... sort of.

Heh.
posted by headnsouth at 6:51 AM on January 10, 2012

I once stayed at a farmhouse just outside Kyoto, an historical house once occupied by a well-to-do samurai. Traditional structure, thatched roof and all. Bowie and Iman stayed in the same house for their honeymoon. The folks who live in the house showed me a snapshot they had taken of Bowie and Iman. A typical, not-especially-well-composed snapshot. They both had that photographic red-eye syndrome. So normal, so utterly unremarkable.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:52 AM on January 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

I think Seinfeld had a Twentieth Anniversary Mac, not a DuoDock.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:53 AM on January 10, 2012

David Bowie is the most photogenic person who has ever lived.
posted by Summer at 6:54 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think Seinfeld had a Twentieth Anniversary Mac, not a DuoDock.

Seinfeld had several different Macs, including a DuoDock.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:56 AM on January 10, 2012

We need a definative Bowie Birthday Playlist.

The version of White Light White Heat off the BBC sessions album and the live version of I'm Waiting For The Man with Frank Black to start.
posted by The Whelk at 6:58 AM on January 10, 2012

Hmm, interesting.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:58 AM on January 10, 2012

A little part of me died seeing a photo of bowie in a big straw cowboy hat.
posted by usonian at 6:59 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

He pushes his kid in a stroller. He steals babies and turns them into goblins.
posted by katillathehun at 7:02 AM on January 10, 2012 [19 favorites]

That picture of him pushing the baby carriage is anything but normal. That is the most glamorous pushing of a baby carriage to ever occur in the entire history of glamorous things.
posted by Windigo at 7:02 AM on January 10, 2012 [13 favorites]

He goes grocery shopping.
posted by Legomancer at 7:04 AM on January 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

A little part of me died seeing a photo of bowie in a big straw cowboy hat.

Think of it this way...

        Here he comes, he's all dressed in black
        PR shoes and a big straw hat
        He's never early, he's always late
        First thing you learn is you always gotta wait

...and so, the legend continues.
posted by aramaic at 7:10 AM on January 10, 2012

He grooms a horse.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:11 AM on January 10, 2012

I refuse to acknowledge that David Bowie is 65 and a senior citizen. Nope.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:11 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I knew this would end up here. Also, he's left handed, like all the cool kids, including me of course.
posted by sweetkid at 7:11 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

And looks good doing it. That one of shopping in Chinatown, gracious.
posted by theredpen at 7:12 AM on January 10, 2012

Emoticon of Tim having to click through images one by one: -___-
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:16 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

We need a definative Bowie Birthday Playlist.

Projects? I would be so down with this...
posted by running order squabble fest at 7:17 AM on January 10, 2012

He lives a glamorous life ... so that we might live one through him.
posted by Twang at 7:18 AM on January 10, 2012

This makes me happy.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:19 AM on January 10, 2012

That picture of him pushing the baby carriage is anything but normal.

Most humans do not look even half as fabulous on the most fabulous day of their entire lives, much less doing something as mundane as pushing a carriage.

Clearly the problem here is in categorizing Bowie as a mere human.
posted by elizardbits at 7:20 AM on January 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

I don't buy it. I'm sure there are all sorts of awesome and mindblowing things happening just out of frame in each of those pictures. Goblins juggling crystal balls, armies of thin men in slim suits waiting at his beck and call, face-painted androgynes writhing to silent music, impossibly gorgeous supermodels having babies, etc. You know, Bowie stuff.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:23 AM on January 10, 2012 [10 favorites]

The Whelk: "Ha, I was just having a conversation last night on how we will have to come to terms with the fact that Bowie is mortal and will die someday."

I don't know who started this vicious rumor, but I'll find out. Oh I will find out.
posted by Splunge at 7:24 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Bonus material: Iggy Pop vaccuuming.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:24 AM on January 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

He rides the subway. In a manner that is demonstrably cooler and more interesting than yours.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:25 AM on January 10, 2012 [6 favorites]

I've always been charmed by this "normal" photo of Bowie with his camera at his son Duncan's graduation. (College of Wooster, 1995)
posted by kimdog at 7:25 AM on January 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Ziggy played X-Com
On a refurbished Mac Mini
Emulated of course
His mouse was left-handed
But he didn't take care
Spilled on his touchpad
Now he's calling AppleCare, mad
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:26 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

"normal" being defined as "looking like an assassin. "
posted by The Whelk at 7:26 AM on January 10, 2012 [8 favorites]

Oh David Bowie how I love you! These are great. But crikey he was thin back then.

That picture of him pushing the baby carriage is anything but normal...

I went to a talk by Duncan Jones (said baby now grown up) following a screening of Moon (which is brilliant). He talked about how he was obsessed with astronomy as a kid and his dad got him a telescope and they geeked out with it together. Then he'd painstakingly construct little films with an old cine camera and his dad would join in. He seemed so stable and well-adjusted and humble and lovely, like he'd had a pretty loving and normal family life despite the rock star malarkies and high-profile family split and crazy birth name.
posted by freya_lamb at 7:33 AM on January 10, 2012 [7 favorites]

I was a little sad to see that he puts his shod feet up on the couch. I expect more from my heroes!
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:35 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've always been charmed by this "normal" photo of Bowie with his camera at his son Duncan's graduation. (College of Wooster, 1995)

The best picture ever taken of me was taken in about 1993. I was in high school. I had long hair and was wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates cap and (I think) a ringer T-shirt. My skin was clear and slightly tanned, I had a great smile and my eyes weren't too squinty. I was casually holding a soda can that could be mistaken for a beer if you didn't look too closely. A female British Uni student who saw the picture asked who I was, because I was "brilliant".

That "normal" Bowie photo makes my best ever picture look like a Ziggy cartoon smeared with Vaseline.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:36 AM on January 10, 2012 [8 favorites]

(previously) He makes typos!
posted by EvaDestruction at 7:37 AM on January 10, 2012

I went to a talk by Duncan Jones (said baby now grown up) following a screening of Moon (which is brilliant).

Whoa, whoa, motherfucking whoa. Are you telling me Zowie Bowie directed Moon? Goddamnit, David Bowie is amazing even at 50% dilution. Unbelievable.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:39 AM on January 10, 2012 [12 favorites]

Weird realization: Eating hot food on an airplane is no longer considered 'Normal.'
posted by schmod at 7:41 AM on January 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Stars, They're Just Like Us!
posted by nathancaswell at 7:43 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Two impressions: 1) I can believe Bowie ate airline food, but I can't believe he sat in coach, 2) He sure did smoke a lot.
posted by tommasz at 7:43 AM on January 10, 2012

I once saw Bowie shopping for books. I caught his eye and he gave me a look that said "Yeah, it's me" and kept on browsing.
posted by jonmc at 7:48 AM on January 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

Hey folks, it's Bowie Week on Tor.com! And here's a vintage interview!
posted by latkes at 7:55 AM on January 10, 2012

I showed the picture of Bowie pushing the baby carriage to my wife and asked her if she could identify the person in the picture. She came up with Rita Wilson.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:56 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I refuse to acknowledge that David Bowie is 65 and a senior citizen. Nope.

I hope to Christ I look half that good at 50.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:56 AM on January 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Holy fuck, David Bowie and Julian Assange are Goddamned near identical.
posted by LogicalDash at 7:58 AM on January 10, 2012

cease this vile blasphemy at once sir
posted by elizardbits at 8:05 AM on January 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

Your task for today is to take the intoxication of choice and lie your bedroom floor listening to this
posted by The Whelk at 8:10 AM on January 10, 2012

He ruins two careers.
posted by punkfloyd at 8:11 AM on January 10, 2012

A little part of me died seeing a photo of bowie in a big straw cowboy hat.

Remarkably, Bowie even makes big straw cowboy hats look good. Even fedoras are no match for his Bowie-ness.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:14 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada with David Bowie at Trader Vic's,
And his hair was perfect. (Bowie's not the werewolf. The werewolf could learn a few things from Bowie.)
posted by Splunge at 8:20 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Remarkably, Bowie even makes big straw cowboy hats look good.

The remarkable thing about the video to "Dancing in the Street", as posted by Punkfloyd above, is not that it is the pure, distilled, fatal 80s - although it certainly is - but that Bowie is wearing white sneakers, a leopard-print one-piece boiler suit and a raincoat, and damn near pulls it off.

Compare the video for DJ, in which he wears a pink boilersuit, raincoat, lavender driving gloves and lace-up desert bootsM (feet on the table again, I'm sad to say, Genjiandproust), and not only pulls it off but appears to be the best-dressed man in London.

Whereas the fairly conservative blue suit and cravat number he models in the video for Black Tie, White Noise just doesn't seem to work with the mise en scene - perhaps because it makes him look like a gentleman sleuth, investigatin' a spot of unpleasantness over in Inglewood.
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:25 AM on January 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

david bowie makes smoking look so cool.
now i want a cigarette.
posted by bitteroldman at 8:28 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

If Trent Reznor was following me down the street, I would turn around and make out with him.
posted by pickinganameismuchharderthanihadanticipated at 8:30 AM on January 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

I told my philistine friends for years that my 1985 Mercedes diesel was actually a cool car, despite its 23.5 second 0-60 time and jelly suspension. Looks like that pic is from a few years earlier, but regardless: this is about as vindicated as it's humanly possible to get.

"Humanly" used loosely, of course.
posted by zap rowsdower at 8:30 AM on January 10, 2012

If Trent Reznor was my cab driver, I would tip him with a handjob.
posted by pickinganameismuchharderthanihadanticipated at 8:31 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Man how did I end up between those two comments.
posted by zap rowsdower at 8:32 AM on January 10, 2012 [7 favorites]

He reminisces about an imaginary event wearing a corny holiday sweater.
posted by dgaicun at 8:34 AM on January 10, 2012

Even fedoras are no match for his Bowie-ness.

I thought that was Julie Andrews.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:37 AM on January 10, 2012

You don't like being the meat in a reznor sandwich?
posted by pickinganameismuchharderthanihadanticipated at 8:41 AM on January 10, 2012

Reznor's great and all, but my taste was already diluted by pure Bowie. Kinda like drinking OJ after brushing your teeth.
posted by zap rowsdower at 8:44 AM on January 10, 2012

Fair enough, I'd give Bowie a handy too.
posted by pickinganameismuchharderthanihadanticipated at 8:49 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

"That's Sovereign to you!"
posted by vibrotronica at 8:57 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Most of the time it looks like he's just got an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth, which...I kind of want to start doing that.
posted by padraigin at 8:59 AM on January 10, 2012

Jarvis Cocker does a BBC6 programme featuring a tribute to Bowie at 65 here if you can get it. At about 50 mins in he talks with Michael Clark about Bowie's approach to normal life. The word they are talking about in this context is Gesamtkunstwerk. Compensation for those who cannot listen: Heroes in German, Carla Bruni doing Absolute Beginners, Bowie covers "America"
posted by rongorongo at 8:59 AM on January 10, 2012

We need a definative Bowie Birthday Playlist.

No birthday is complete without a little My Death
posted by philip-random at 9:13 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

... and a great David Bowie site, which includes this rather cracked 1976 Playboy interview (with young Cameron Crowe), in which nothing at all normal gets discussed.
posted by philip-random at 9:21 AM on January 10, 2012

I was neighbors with David Bowie and Iggy Pop in Berlin in 1978-9, This is exactly how he was most of the time. Unremarkable. Well, except for being David Bowie....
posted by pjern at 9:40 AM on January 10, 2012

Man how did I end up between those two comments.

Just flag it as a "TMI Trent Reznor Fantasy Sandwich" and move on.

Forget it, zap,; it's Metatown.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:54 AM on January 10, 2012

I should add that I've seen John Waters shop for books with the same result. He is one skinny motherfucker, by the way, he could use himself as a bookmark.
posted by jonmc at 10:20 AM on January 10, 2012

David Bowie wearing a cat. More celebrities with cats.
posted by exogenous at 10:45 AM on January 10, 2012

Heh. Speaking of Bowie and doing normal stuff.

My ex lived in the same building as the Bowie family for a while, so naturally I'd end up in the elevator with him. (Or her. She kind of scared me more.)

Anyway, you know how you go to Bed, Bath, & Beyond for, like, one thing, and end up redoing your whole house? Yeah, the ex had one of those trips and I was helping him carry everything up. We had a kind of assembly-line-thing going, for bringing everything out of the car, into the building, and up the elevator.

He'd toss a bag full of pillows down the hallway, and I'd toss it in the elevator, jamming the door with my foot.

On bag number 11 or so, I was furiously tossing pillow bags, not paying attention. And who just happened to be walking toward the elevator, mid-throw? David Bowie.

I clocked David Bowie in the face with a Bed, Bath, & Beyond bag.
posted by functionequalsform at 11:04 AM on January 10, 2012 [24 favorites]

Oh god, that's like ...20 years bad luck.
posted by The Whelk at 11:13 AM on January 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

imagine david bowie walking around bed bath and beyond with a huge shopping cart picking out every electric blue item and singing sound and vision THAT WOULD BE THE BEST
posted by nathancaswell at 11:19 AM on January 10, 2012 [8 favorites]

I see it more like a remix of I'm Afraid Of Americans.
posted by The Whelk at 11:27 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

blue blue electric blue, that's the color of my room where i will live
posted by nathancaswell at 11:33 AM on January 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Bowie is a god among insects. I will go gay for Bowie anytime, anywhere.

Please be mine. Share my life. Stay with me. And keep the milk and chili peppers handy you classy bastard.
posted by WhitenoisE at 11:35 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

He counsels struggling sitcom writers! [Requisite Bowie clip from Extras]
posted by Dr. Zira at 12:04 PM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

[Requisite Bowie clip from Extras]

He performed that song live when he introduced Ricky Gervais at Gervais' High Line Festival show in 2007. Sigh. That was the last time I saw him perform.
posted by kimdog at 12:28 PM on January 10, 2012

He fraternizes with the help!
posted by running order squabble fest at 12:38 PM on January 10, 2012

Never again shall I wear a bathrobe without combat boots.



NEVER
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:38 PM on January 10, 2012

I hope nothing happens to his Long Time Companda.
posted by The Whelk at 1:36 PM on January 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Once he does it, it's not normal anymore.

Did someone already say that?
posted by Liquidwolf at 1:43 PM on January 10, 2012

I remember seeing a Bowie interview on Danish TV some ten years ago. The interviewer introduced himself and Bowie went: "Oh. My. God. You're Thomas Vinterberg?! The Vinterberg who made "Festen"? Oh, oh, let's not talk about me - let's talk about YOU because, oh wow!" Bowie fanboying someone else is still the most elegant thing you can imagine.
posted by kariebookish at 1:58 PM on January 10, 2012 [13 favorites]

awww I love that story kariebookish.
posted by sweetkid at 2:05 PM on January 10, 2012

What's funny is that just before viewing these photos, I told the mirror version of myself, "Sir, you are no David Bowie!" So it was nice to get a second opinion.
posted by Camofrog at 9:31 PM on January 10, 2012

I know I already said this once upthread, but if you love Bowie, you should really, really check the tor.com Bowie Week series that's going on right now. Very smart with lots of great perspectives on his awesomeness.
posted by latkes at 1:48 PM on January 11, 2012