My favorite album, always tough to do, most likely is The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust,

My intramural basketball team in college was named

"The Spiders from Mars"

"At just four minutes, 'Lazarus' isn't the most unexpected track on Bowie's excellent 'Blackstar' (that would be its haunting, nine-minute-plus title track). But it is its most poignant in hindsight. 'Look up here, I'm in heaven,' Bowie says to open the song amid sighing horns and a downcast rhythm that still leaves room for hope. Looking at the song's striking video it's hard not to think of Bowie's illness as he floats above his bed and sings of freedom before asking, 'Ain't that just like me?' Can this song be seen as an autobiographical glimpse? As always, there's no way of knowing. But we can only hope David Bowie is looking back at us now."

"Ain't there one damn song that can make me break down and cry?"
- David Bowie, "Young Americans" (1975)

He was a master of all the arts: musical, performing, painting, sculpting. I wonder if he could cook. And, last I saw him, still impossibly handsome.

What makes this exchange particularly interesting is how quickly Bowie literally flipped the conversation on interviewer Mark Goodman, when he called out MTV for its conscious failure to include African-American artists in its prime-time video rotation. Leaves one to wonder who was interviewing whom:

David Bowie: "It occurred to me, having watched MTV over the last few months, that's it's a solid enterprise, really. It's got a lot going for it. I'm just floored by the fact that there are so few black artists featured on it. Why is that?"

Mark Goodman: "I think we're trying to move in that direction. We want to play artists that seem to be doing music that fits into what we want to play for MTV. The company is thinking in terms of narrow-casting."

Bowie: "That's evident. It's evident in the fact that the only few black artists that one does see are on about 2:30 in the morning to around 6. Very few are featured predominantly during the day."

Goodman then attempted to defend his employer, but Bowie further pressed the issue and in the process, elicited some rather appalling admissions from Goodman about what was then MTV's preferred demographics and racist business model.

Goodman: "We have to play the music that we think an entire country is going to like. And certainly we are a rock `n' roll station. Now, the question would be asked, should, since we're in New York, should [W]PLJ play, you know, the Isley Brothers. Well, you and I might say, well, yeah, because we've grown up in an era when the Isley Brothers mean something to me. And so do the Spinners way after the Isley Brothers. But what does it mean to a 17-year-old? Well, when you talk on the phone to these guys like I did when I was in radio, it's scary."

Bowie: "Well, I tell you what it means. I tell you what maybe the Isley Brothers or Marvin Gaye means to a black 17-year-old. Surely he's part of America as well."

Goodman: "Ah, no question. No question. That's why you're seeing those things --"

Bowie: "Do you not find that it's a frightening predicament to be in?"

Goodman: "Yeah, but less so here than in radio."

Bowie: "And is it not, well, dare say, 'It's not me, it's them.' Is it not possible that it should be a conviction of the station and of other radio stations to be fair? It does seem to be rampant through American media. Should it not be a challenge to try to make the media far more integrated in ..."

Goodman: "I think it's happening."

Bowie: "... especially, if anything, in musical terms?"

Goodman: "Absolutely, I think it's happening because white music and white musicians are now starting to play now more than ever -- more than they have lately, let's say in the last 10 years -- what black artists have been into. And now, hopefully, the lines are going to start to blur. And when we play a band like ABC, well, there's white and black kids who are enjoying it. And all of a sudden, well, it's a little bit easier for a white kid to understand it. The fact is -- quite frankly, I could even point you towards a letter in the new issue of the Record -- the magazine, the Record -- responding to an article by Dave Marsh, that this kid just ranted about what he didn't want to see on MTV ..."

Bowie: "Well, that's his problem."

Goodman: "... and in no uncertain terms. Well, what I'm saying, though, is that there's, as you say, there certainly are a lot of black kids and white kids who may want to see black music, but there's a ton of them who are -- it's not like it was in '67 where you say, "Yeah, I'm not into that, but you are? Yeah?" Now it's, "You're into that? I don't like YOU." And that's scary, and we can't just turn around and go, "Well, look, this is the right way!" We can only teach, I think, a little bit at a time.

Bowie: "Interesting. OK, thank you very much."

Goodman: "Does that make sense? Is it a valid point?"

Bowie: (Smiling) "I understand your point of view." (Laughs)

Chris Stein: The first time we met Bowie was when we supported him and Iggy Pop [for The Idiot tour in 1977]. We were in awe of him and Iggy right from the get-go. He was always very charming and gentlemanly, but also wary and kind of catty at the same time. I remember we talked about the new wave, and about [Television frontman] Tom Verlaine's hairdo a lot. He was a little sarcastic and derisive of it, but at the same time I thought he was also kind of jealous of the attention the hairdo was getting.

Very sad.  He was not that old compared to the rest of us.  

He recently released a a film, BLACKSTAR

very good.

David Bowie is preparing to release new album ★ (pronounced Blackstar) on January 8. This Tuesday, he shared a two-minute preview of the title track, and now, he's shared a trailer for its accompanying short film. Directed by Johan Renck, the clip will premiere next Thursday at 3:50 p.m. Eastern on Palladia.

Have you seen the photo that's been circulating on Twitter of Mr. Bowie out in the city in cargo shorts and sneakers and carrying Uncut magazine? He's very normcore. You can see why nobody recognized him, why an international superstar was able to move through the city unseen.

He understood that in our minds we all held a picture of David Bowie, or Ziggy, or the Thin White Duke. It allowed him to walk among us disguised as himself, David Jones.

"When I first came to New York, I was in my early 20s, discovering a city I had fantasised over since my teens. I saw it with multicoloured glasses, to say the least. Also, I rarely got up before noon and hit the sack again around four or five in the morning," Bowie told New York magazine in 1991. "These days, my buzz can be obtained by just walking, preferably early in the morning, as I am a seriously early riser. I leave only if work demands it. I am not a secretive guy, but I am quite private. I live as a citizen pure and simple. I don't go for the disguise thing - I've never found it necessary, at least not since my real hair colour grew in years ago. I suppose wearing jeans is the nearest I get to confounding expectations."

You were with Bowie during an earlier health scare, the heart attack that ended his touring career.

That was an odd, abrupt ending to something that really had a lot of joy about it. We had been touring at that point for, oh, 13 months. He was very happy with the band, and he talked in terms of continuing to make records, continuing to tour. We had done this kind of world tour, and then we were going to headline all the big festivals in Europe. And he hadn't done that in a long time. We felt so relaxed and so powerful as a band, flexible and supple and ready to go. We had just started that European leg of the tour in Prague, which was the show where he walked past me on the fourth song and I was like, "That's not supposed to happen." That was confusing for everybody, and we got through that night, but we had to cut the show short. And, well, he had this pain in his chest, and nobody really knew -- did he pull a muscle? When you're in the 50s, some friends call it the sniper alley of life. These things come out, and nobody's expecting it.

Renck knew that Bowie was ill, but he was unaware that he had taken a turn for the worse. Like other viewers, he's newly focused on the end of the "Lazarus" video. Bowie, dressed in a Man Who Fell to Earth/Station to Station-era costume - black with diagonal stripes - backs into a wooden wardrobe that resembles a coffin. As the song's final guitar chord fades, he pulls the door shut behind him and disappears into darkness.

The exit wasn't Bowie's idea, but he embraced it. "Somebody on set said, 'You should end the video by disappearing into the closet,'" says Renck. "And I saw David sort of think about that for a second. Then a big smile came up on his face. And he said something like, 'Yeah, that will keep them all guessing, won't it?'"