Look at Those Cavemen Go!

Drawing a Bowie song as a diversion for dark days

Note: I’ve got another explainer cartoon in the works, but hope this story of coping with IT HAPPENING HERE is of some interest while it’s underway

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A Sadd’ning Bore

Like most of us, I’ve experienced a full tasting menu of negative emotions this past week: fear, anger, incredulity, outrage, more fear, more anger… you know the drill. It’s what happens when a brain runs full tilt, trying to process the sort of political news that no brain should ever have to process. Even my brain, which remembers Watergate, Vietnam and other late 20th Century outrages, has to admit It’s never seen anything like this. And like most of our brains, it cries out for some diversion in between calls to Congress and doomscrolling.

Life on Mars?

Since the election, but even more since Monday, I’ve found strange consolation is playing this amazing Bowie song on endless loop:

And while my mind was still on its hamster wheel of rumination about the horrors, I made this drawing based on the song’s chorus:

Sailors fighting in the dance hall. Oh man, look at those cavemen go!

Some lyrics…

But the film is sadd'ning bore
For she's lived it ten times or more.
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on

Sailors
Fighting in the dance hall.
Oh man!
Look at those cavemen go.
It's the freakiest show.
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy.
Oh man!
Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show.
Is there Life On Mars?

For me, the song is about finding yourself somewhere you never wanted to be, witnessing a pointless and brutal scene you never wanted to witness.

So…appropriate:

Bowie explained it like this:

I think [the girl in the song] finds herself disappointed with reality ... she's being told that there's a far greater life somewhere, and she's bitterly disappointed that she doesn't have access to it.

For the record (see what I did there?), I agree: there is a far greater life somewhere, even if we don’t have access to it right now. There are surely freakier shows yet to come. But we will persevere, overcome and build something better and more lasting.

And the cavemen will go