I know what you’re thinking:  These baby rhinos sound just like the latest album from Radiohead. (Unfortunately.)

If you’re at all interested in how a song recording gets built, or in the music of David Bowie, you’ll want to check this out:  Bowie producer Tony Visconti breaks down the elements  of  “Heroes” into separate tracks, and discusses the recording process. It’s 20 minutes very well spent. (And provides a welcome companion primer to the release of The Beach Boys’ “The Smile Sessions” from a few years ago, which included several discs of bonus tracks where you could hear the “Smile” pieces separately, before they came together.) I especially enjoyed hearing the result of Brian Eno’s “synthesizer in a suitcase,” as well as Bowie’s isolated vocal.

If you’d like to watch this — and, again, I promise you it’s 20 minutes well-spent — do it now. This is from the BBC, and generally they don’t leave special content like this up for long.

I’ve really had it with this. Instead of all this misery and loss, we need to focus on bringing Bowie back. Who’s in?

Last night at a quarter to midnight, I saw a link on a friend’s Facebook page to a statement saying that David Bowie had died. “Is this true?” she was asking. I did some quick checking around the Internet, didn’t see anything, and responded, “This is bullshit. It pisses me off when people pull hoaxes like this for their own enjoyment.”

Twenty minutes later, I felt I had to delete that response. Unfortunately.

I texted my friend Trey with the news. He was similarly in shock. We exchanged several more texts, and then he sent one that said, “I could be at your place in about 30 minutes.” And so, until 2 a.m., we sat outside and drank drinks and smoked cigars and listened to the music of David Bowie and wondered aloud about each other’s health and mortality.

David Bowie was more than just an innovator. He was an explorer. An adventurer. Because he seemed to live every moment to the utmost, infusing our world with art of all sorts (making music, but also film and stage and paintings and more), constantly surrounded by art and artists and never looking backward, in an effort to prove that Bowie must after all be human, one publication saw fit to collect a series of photos of Bowie doing ordinary things. It is by far the most unusual photo series about the man, because Bowie appearing down-to-earth looks so out of context.

In addition to his superhuman accomplishments,Bowie  also was an avatar for people who wanted to be themselves, no matter what society thought they should be, or do, or look like, as so many friends have reminded me today. One, a gay man, said that Bowie was seen carrying a purse in the 1970s, and that made things seem easier. Holly Hughes posted this on her Facebook page:  “Like many queer people of my generation I can’t overstate how much I loved David Bowie. He was the first pop star I loved.”  Bowie made it okay to be different.

Even more than the essential reality check he brought to every moment, in which he reminded you that what others thought shouldn’t matter because, as Jim Morrison wrote, “no one here gets out alive,” Bowie provided music that always sounded somehow very right by sounding somehow a little wrong. In the way that my favorite Fitzgerald novel is “Tender is the Night” because the structure doesn’t quite work and its imperfections make it seem more true, the dissonance and off-kilter rhythms Bowie brought to his best work could snap you out of the conformity of sound. Whether it’s the achingly slow vocal in “Cat People,” the surprising double-tracked piano solo in “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson,” or the alien aural landscape of Low, Bowie’s work demanded attention. Muzak it wasn’t.

Today, I’m grateful for several things.

That I got to see him perform live — including on his very last tour, in April of 2004 in Anaheim. I’d seen him in the 1980’s on the “Serious Moonlight” tour, when he traversed the globe with a massive set and special effects, and that was wonderful. But seeing Bowie 12 years ago with a stripped-down band on a nearly bare stage, performing in jeans and a t-shirt and sneakers and seeming every bit of 20 or 30 years younger, was powerful. Here was someone stuffed to the gills with life.

That he was such a powerful gateway drug. Is it because of David Bowie that I was introduced to Devo, and Brian Eno, and TV on the Radio, and Robert Fripp, and so many other things that made me sit up and ask “What is that???” Perhaps not all of it — but a lot if it. Bowie had taste. I was willing to eat anything he was serving.

And I’m grateful for so much more, including all the wonderful music, but I’m especially grateful that I got a full day of listening to “Blackstar,” which I bought immediately upon release, before I learned that he was dead. The album had one meaning for me — “Here’s Bowie’s latest! What crazy shit is this?” — before it had another:  “Here’s Bowie’s last. It fills me with joy, and with ashes.”

I bought “Blackstar” on Saturday and listened to it that night while my wife and I drove to hear the Pasadena Symphony. It sounded exotic, and difficult, and haunting. It played through once, and then I changed it — but she stopped me and asked, “What are you doing? I want to hear that again.” Something hypnotic and unknowable that I hear in most of Bowie’s music had grabbed her. The next day, I lay on the living room couch, drinking coffee and reading the LA Times while playing the CD loud in the background. “Why is this so loud?” one of my children asked. “Because it’s fantastic,” I said. I will always cherish that moment — listening to the new David Bowie album, really letting it sink in, admiring the adventure of a 69-year-old international celebrity daring to do something brand-fucking-new-sounding at that advanced age.

Twelve hours later, the album held a very different meaning.

Three final thoughts.

Of all the messages and thoughts I’ve read — too many to read them all, given that literally hundreds of millions of people are mourning —  this is my favorite. It actually makes me feel better:

David Bowie has returned to his home after an all too brief sojourn amongst humanity.

The departure means that sadly it is the world that looks very different today.

He leaves behind a substantial body of work, including several autobiographical albums about the experience of being something more than human amongst mere mortals.

The singer’s home is believed to be somewhere in the constellation of Sirius but, like so much about him, this was left extremely ambiguous.

Bowie took up residence on this planet after falling to Earth, but it was generally accepted that no one planet could sufficiently contain him for long.

Fans are comforted with the knowledge that life continues somewhere, if not necessarily on Mars.

In response to the news, people worldwide are politely requesting that Tom Waits and David Attenborough go to bed early and take care of themselves, as there’s only so much of this we can stand.

Jodrell Bank have confirmed ground control will continue to call for him into the silent, eternal void, hoping for a signal.

Hats off to whoever wrote that.

Secondly, my daughter, who had gone with me on Saturday to buy the new CD, told me today when I picked her up from school that she was glad she knew David Bowie’s music while he was alive. In her view, everyone at school had climbed on board because he was dead, but she had been there first. I know that view well, having been there with Bowie a long, long time ago. She also bemoaned the music of her generation:  “What do we have? ‘Whip Nae Nae’?”

Finally, by the end of today, a different feeling came over me. A deterministic sense that because our own path lies within each of us, we can make of everything what we will. Therefore, now that it’s The Next Day, I’ve decided not to buy into the whole David Bowie is Dead hoax and to just go on in happy anticipation of his imminent tour.

It’s better this way.

David Bowie lives on.

This morning’s Los Angeles Times included a story announcing that “Miley Cyrus is back!”

Some of us hadn’t been aware she’d gone anywhere. In fact, not only has she been omnipresent, it has seemed impossible to get rid of her. So I don’t know what they’re talking about.

When one hears of Miley Cyrus, as one is forced to do, given her co-dominance of the news with Donald Trump, one often also hears that she has stolen her act from Madonna. But I think there’s an even earlier antecedent, one who first laid those well-worn tracks (as it were). And below, you find the truth, in this delectable demonstration of music and dance.

When I came home from the lamentable Meat Loaf concert, I reassured my wife that Mr. Loaf  cannot sing and that he hadn’t performed the hallowed song from “Rocky Horror” — the song that she says she and our good friend from college sang every day, which I now don’t recall — anyway, and that the show was a bust. This was all true, and was also offered as assuagement.

Two mornings later, while she was still at work (she works nights),  I found myself singing away in the kitchen while fixing breakfast. Evidently, I still know about 70% of the lyrics to Meat Loaf’s hit “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” much to the chagrin of my 17-year-old daughter who cut into my singing to ask in a demanding fashion, “Are  you about done yet?” (Hey, it’s a long song.)

Just then, my wife swung around the corner into the kitchen and into view, startling me. “Glaah!” I shrieked. I hadn’t realized she was home from the hospital, but there she was in her death-toned black scrubs.

She had caught several bars of my rendition and offered this:  “You’ve got the tempo wrong.” Whereupon she launched into the entire song, sung at pretty much the speed I’d thought I was doing.

As a playwright and as someone trained in analyzing the deeper motivations of characters real and fictive, I wondered at the intent behind this, and started to spin a whole narrative in my head. But as her husband, all I said was, “Trust me, it was a terrible concert. I spared  you.”

On Wednesday night, a friend and I went to see the singer Meat Loaf in a concert at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills. Yes, I have enjoyed some of Meat Loaf’s music, but the main reason I was going was because Trey had wondered if I’d join him. We have an unspoken pact to support each other in our musical tastes — he’s certainly seen Pere Ubu often enough with me — and so, yes, I agreed to go see Meat Loaf. While not especially a fan of Meat Loaf, almost 40 years later I could still summon up what a powerful impression he made on me with his performance on “Saturday Night Live” back in that show’s formative years. (To watch a video of “Two out of Three Ain’t Bad” from that 1978 SNL episode, click here.) No, I didn’t expect a return to that, but I figured it’d be nice to spend some time with a friend seeing an act I’d never seen but enjoyed.

Before I headed over there, my wife had questions.

“Where is this?” she asked.

“The Saban,” I said.

“Is that ‘Saban’ like the guy who owned the Power Rangers?”

“Yes,” I said. “Also the Saban who’s a major donor to the Democrats.”

“And this is Meat Loaf.”

“Uh huh.”

“… Was I invited?”

Now, she’s frequently made a point that she doesn’t like to go to concerts. Yes, she gamely went to see A Flock of Seagulls with me several months ago — in the rain! — and we had a great time, but she has told me repeatedly that she doesn’t want to go to concerts. Not even to see The Who, a band she really likes. To wit, this previous exchange:

Me: “Happy anniversary! Hey — I got us tickets to see The Who!”

Her:  “Why?”

Me: “For our anniversary.”

Her: “Why don’t you take Trey?”

Me: “Um… because that doesn’t seem very anniversary-like.”

After which I reminded her of all the Who songs she likes, and promised what a great time we’d have. (The concert, which was supposed to be last month, has been rescheduled for May because Roger Daltrey was ill, so I foresee many more months of negotiation over whether or not she’s going. She’s still insisting that I should take Trey.)

With Meat Loaf on Wednesday night, the story was quite different.

Again: “Was I invited?”

Me: “Um… no…. Sorry, did you want to go?”

Her: “I love Meat Loaf. I’ve always loved Meat Loaf! Don’t you remember that in college Ski and I used to sing Meat Loaf’s song from ‘Rocky Horror’ all the time?”

Me, not remembering that: “Sorry, I thought you didn’t like concerts.”

Her: “But this is Meat Loaf!”

Me: “I can go online right now. See if I can get you a ticket.”

Her, with a sigh: “No, that’s all right. I need to stay home with the kids….”

Me: “I’ll stay home with the kids. You go see Meat Loaf with Trey and I’ll stay here.”

Her: “No, that’s okay. You have fun.”

When I related this to Trey, while we were sitting in the theatre waiting for the show to start, his brow furrowed. “Now I feel shitty,” he said. I countered, “Don’t worry about it — I offered to buy her a ticket, I offered to stay home, I offered for her to go in my place…” “But she could be sitting right there!” he said, pointing to an empty seat to my left. And it was true — she could have been.

Just then, the lights dimmed and people hooted and the band came on and started to play. As the seven supporting musicians started, I got excited — the mix of heavy drums with percussion and keyboards, and then twin layers of guitar on top, filled me with anticipation. This sounded great, and this was going to be great!

But then… Meat Loaf entered and started to sing. Or, more appropriately, “sing.”

As I was going to learn over the course of the next 90 minutes, the 2015 version of Meat Loaf can’t sing. As we discovered the only time he spoke to the audience, he can barely speak. When, three songs in, he announced a little birthday tribute to someone in the audience, his voice reminded of the metallic scraping of our in-sink garbage disposal, a gnashing and grating clamor that no one can endure. The reason Meat Loaf has seven supporting musicians became crystal clear — most of them cover for him on vocals. Not only can he not hit a single note, he can’t find one to make the attempt. He also, I suspect, is in some physical distress. Mr. Loaf has a large upper body, and legs that don’t seem to be supporting him too well; he ambled about the stage like a great rolling stink bug in a lurching, stilted way that convinced me he has major joint problems.

Outside after the concert, Trey and I ran into our friend David, an all-around great guy and a terrific actor I’ve seen in many shows over the years. Trey and David spent about 15 minutes talking each other into how wonderful the show was even though Meat Loaf can’t sing.

“It’s so great to see him,” David said.

“I know, it was really great!”

“Oh, those songs!”

“I think he hit one note!” Trey said with earnest good intention.

“No, he didn’t,” I said sourly. I honestly didn’t want to rain on their parade, but I wasn’t in for a round of self-delusion.

They went on with fond memories of Meat Loaf’s long-ago glory days, and how rewarding it was to see him.

“GUYS!” I said. “It’s great to see you both. And to spend some time with you. Really. But the ticket was one hundred and four dollars… to see a singer… who CAN’T SING! He couldn’t find a note if you stapled it onto his nose. The band was great, but he can’t sing, and he can’t move, so in this case, two out of three really is pretty bad.”

That somewhat took the air out of the encounter.

Then an ambulance pulled up, and we wondered if it were for Mr. Loaf himself, so we hung around and rubber-necked expressly to see if it was. (It wasn’t.)

Later, I googled Meat Loaf. A major thread of the search results:

“Meat Loaf can’t sing anymore.” (If you’re going to read just one, I recommend this one — because it explicates what happens when you don’t take care of your instrument.

“Rockers Who Can’t Sing Anymore.” (Guess who is prominently featured.)

Here’s a TripAdvisor review that includes this assessment: “The first note out of his mouth made me look at my husband and question him. Is that a stand in? Is the real Meat going to come out and say it was a joke, sadly no joke, he can’t sing a note anymore.”

And then, I found this, from The Guardian:

“I’ve had 18 concussions,” he says. “My balance is off. I’ve had a knee replacement. I’ve got to have the other one replaced. Two weeks before the knee surgery, I literally couldn’t walk from the bedroom to the kitchen. They took me to the hospital in an ambulance to get my knee replaced. And when they did, it was so damaged and torn up it’s going to take a year to come back. It’s just the travel. It takes it out of you. I want to concentrate more on acting. That’s where I started and that’s where I’ll finish. This time, they’re not going to rope me back in.”

To be honest, one hopes they don’t: Meat Loaf is reminiscent of nothing so much as a veteran boxer, moving awkwardly, talking slowly until he finds his rhythm. He’s had plenty of problems on stage in recent years – a Wembley show had to be abandoned in 2003, with him requiring heart surgery afterwards – and it’s him, not me, who observes that those of his contemporaries who are still touring hard are rather less substantial figures than he is: “All those skinny guys can keep going.” He certainly doesn’t seem to be yearning to do concerts. Most rock singers will tell you the two hours on stage make up for the 22 hours of tedium. Meat Loaf doesn’t. Sitting in a suite in a London hotel, he says how sick he is of hotel rooms. He bemoans the internet culture in which people say whatever they want about whoever they want, especially him: “If people don’t know what they’re talking about, why open their mouths?” Though he’s not cantankerous – he laughs often and talks freely – there’s a sense of Grumpy Old Man about him these days.

That’s from a piece about his “farewell tour.” It’s from 2013. That farewell is long overdue.

The other night on a friend’s recommendation I recorded Stephen Colbert’s show to catch a bit he did on the multi-car pileup that is the House Speaker’s succession. (Or, I guess, secession. For two men in a row.)  The piece was indeed hilarious.

I wound up watching all of the show (although fast-forwarding a rather empty interview with James Corden who, yes, can sing and dance, but who seems to have nothing to say) and then came upon the musical guest:  Halsey. I recognized her song, “New Americana,” which is at #95 on the U.S. charts but constantly on my radio, and decided to learn a little more about her. I looked her up and learned that she’s 21, grew up about 30 miles away from my birthplace, and is biracial, bisexual, and bipolar. And then it occurred to me that, even 10 years ago, any one of those three would have disqualified you for any number of things; now you can be on network TV and mention all of it in your official biography.

Meanwhile, the GOP is acting far crazier than any of the bipolar people I know.

Why do I love the music I love?

Tonight at 7 p.m. in Santa Monica, I’ll be one of the five storytellers addressing this question. (Most specifically in my case the music of Pere Ubu.) It’s my second appearance in a program of live storytelling called Shine. Here are the details, if you’d like to come join us.

The other night, my wife said, “Why are you doing this?” (Somehow neglecting the fact that I’ve been doing readings, speeches, talks, and what have you pretty much my entire life.)  Before I could respond, one of my kids said, “So he can get people to listen to Pere Ubu for 10 minutes.”

Precisely right. It’s missionary work.

Here’s Scott Weiland, formerly of Stone Temple Pilots, wandering his way through their biggest hit with his own solo-act backing band.

Why is he no longer fronting Stone Temple Pilots? They got tired of some of his habits.

We may be seeing the effect of one of those habits right here and now, in what may be the most painful music video I’ve ever seen.