“Soooofragette Ceeeeety!”

Over the speakers I hear an overly emotional guitarist crooning something strangely familiar, considering the flamenco strumming pattern and the lyrics, all in Spanish. I laugh as I realize this guy’s covering the entirety of Ziggy Stardust. Alien rockstar, indeed. I am simply amused by this Hispanic man’s pilfering of Bowie, until I notice the vigilante tapping of my toes and realize that in some strange way this resonates with me more than the original. I ask the baristo (it’s a dude) who this is and he says “Sue George”. I’m sure I’m butchering the actual spelling, but the too appropriate image of a boy named Sue recording the hits of a cross-dressing glam rocker is just too gratifying to have me bother looking it up. I can just envision little ten year old Sue prancing around in front of the mirror with his mom’s lipstick and high heels on, belting out “Ch-ch-ch-ch-changeeees!” in a thick latino accent. Not that I ever did that. I mean I lived in New Mexico, but I never had that much of an accent. I gave up that dream when I realized that with my skinny calves, I’d never look good in stilettos………uh, anyway, I think my point was, there was some Sue in me too, at one point. I too had arena-sized dreams of superstardom. Hearing this, listening to a man that was so moved by an artist that he took that time to translate his favorite album and make it his own in an endearingly sincere and heartfelt way…I really liked that. What better example of the triumph of the spirit of man, when his passions drive him to produce some strange and beautiful output, by sheer force of the vibration of some mysterious contrapuntal resonance. I can only hope that occasionally, my scribblings approach that level of nakedly honest tribute.