david bowie - i'm afraid of americans

label: virgin
released: 1997

the year is 1995.
the place is tinley park,il.
the venue is the new world music theatre.
i was out on the lawn.
it was the OUTSIDE tour.

the reason for me being there was the nine inch nails as i'd been a fan ever since the BROKEN ep.
yeah.
i know about PRETTY HATE MACHINE.
i can appreciate some PRETTY HATE MACHINE.
that came later on.
just like i can appreciate some WITH SYMPATHY.
yeah.
i know that's ministry.
just saying.
THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL was still fresh.

and then there's david bowie.
i'm pretty sure that at least 20% of that crowd only kinda sorta knew who he was.
and i'm pretty sure that they only knew of him because of their parents listening to the radio.
but they probably knew of him as he'd had trent reznor in his video for "i'm afraid of americans".
speaking for myself: i knew of david bowie.
i liked some david bowie.
i grew in the 80s.
and then there's that video for "dancing in the street"....

but i digress.....

so there i was.
standing out on the lawn with my then girlfriend.
she knew of david bowie as well.
she liked david bowie as well.
she grew up in the 80s as well.
as for how she felt towards the "dancing in the street" video i just don't know.
we never discussed such things.
i don't know why.
we should've.
perhaps we would've stayed together a bit longer than we had.

the band prick took the stage first.
they were just ok.
i'd only knew of the one song by them.
"i apologise".
and no.
that's not a misspelling.
that's how they spelled it.
who am i to argue with that?

and then came the nine inch nails.
i've seen the band twice in my lifetime.
this being the first.
this being the "cranky kid who needs a juice box and a nap" version of the nine inch nails.
the second time i'd seen them was in lincoln,ne back in 2006.
that version of the nine inch nails had drank all of the juice box and were well rested.
they might as well have taken the stage wearing snuggly sweaters with rocking chairs and mugs of warm tea and told stories of shenanigans past.
yeah.
and that's all that i'll say about that.

every so often david bowie would wander out on stage and perform with the nine inch nails.
it was during one of these times that caused the fella that was grinding up against his fellow hot topic employee girlfriend to stop what he was doing and to glare towards the stage and utter the following words:

"who's the old faggot on stage?!"

i just stood there and took it all in.
thought about it.
mulled the words over in my head.
i can't remember which song was playing at the time but it was causing the crowd to move and i took that as an opportunity to "accidentally" kick that person in the back of the leg.
he stumbled and then he and his lady friend looked over at me.
and i returned a look that both said "bro! totally sorry!" and "you know what you did.".

yeah.
that was a good story,grampa.
how did you get out of the basement again?
we're expecting company and you can't be up here.
it seems as if we're going to have to use a higher dose this time around.

what you get here are 6 versions of the song "i'm afraid of americans".
"remixes" if you will.
done by folks with names like: trent reznor and dave ogilvie and charlie clouser and brian eno and photek.
ice cube even makes a chill appearance.
yeah.
that just happened.
and you let it happen.
now get off my lawn.

DL