People who inspire me: David Bowie and Dane

Hey guys, quick update before I start bloggin'. Yes, I am back at school. I'm approaching the semester with a whole lot of hope and a whole lot of honesty. As such, I hope you'll keep with me and listen to what I have to say.

The following series idea came from a discussion that Dane came up with (inspired by Steven Spielberg's acceptance speech at the Golden Globes). The question was, which people inspire you? What kinds of authors, directors, musicians inspire you to create (in my case, blog and write creatively)? I've decided to extend this a little bit and pick one person in culture who inspires me and one person from my everyday life who inspires me. I hope you enjoy the series. And as always, comments are greatly appreciated.

1. David Bowie. David Bowie has only very recently begun to inspire me. I'd always been aware of his music, hits like Let's Dance, China Girl, Heroes, and Under Pressure. Famous stuff. I began to delve into his pyramid-like discography further once I discovered "Sound and Vision", a track off of "Low" that served to inspire Trent Reznor on his work with "The Downward Spiral" (as you probably know, one of my favorite albums).

David Bowie has a remarkable talent at storytelling. From Ziggy Stardust's "Starman" and "Ziggy Stardust," it's easy to get enraptured in his ballad-esque retelling of Ziggy and his life. I can only hope to imitate the ease in which Bowie's lyrics blend brilliantly with his acoustic/electric guitar pairings. For me, it's like Poetry's clever dance with rhythm and meaning. When it works, it works beautifully. The other thing that inspires me about Bowie is his daring in adding little-teensy-tiny bits of social commentary without seeming overwhelming or in-your-face. My favorite song of his is easily "Rebel Rebel," which (masked behind a rockin' melody) tells the story of a rebellious girl who is opressed by society into conforming to traditional girl stereotypes. Brilliant stuff, and not nearly as preachy and stupid as so-called "Social rockers" like Allanis Morrisett, John Mayer, and Mellisa Etheridge.

2. Dane K. Dane has always served as an inspiration to me, not only the fact that I've known him for 17 years (go figure), but just because he is a real friend to me. It's with Dane, more than anyone else, that I can have intellectual conversations and meaningful discussions. Dane is one of those persons who you can always pick up conversations exactly where we leave off (though our inundation of text messages through the day ensure there's few gaps). His knowledge of classic movies, music, pop culture, politics, social trends, and so much more continue to fascinate me, along with his amazing ability to remember EVERY DARN LITTLE DETAIL about everything. Whether it's quoting a movie, line by line, or asking him what year an album was released, Dane's knowledge is 100% accurate...Though there's only a 33% chance of that :P I could go on for pages, but I just want to touch on some tiny inside jokes that always serve to amuse and inspire....such as...*deep breaths* "Is space time continuum remote mine?", Tori Amos, David "Boowie", "Oh...Apples!", Burnout Revenge, "I can't stand him!", "None more black", and so much more... So anyways, here's to Dane and David Boowie, who will always keep me on my toes.