Dylan certainly shook up English audiences, how many performers have had ‘Judas’ screamed at them from the crowd? That didn’t even happen to Judas! Ken was one Mr. Jones who certainly did know what was happening here. When I first met Mr. Pitt, he was nurturing the talents of an undiscovered cockney singer from the wrong side of town named Davey Jones. David later changed his last name on a Wild West whim to Bowie and the rest is rock ‘n roll history. I did meet David a time or two and spoke to him when he would occasionally answer the phone at Ken’s apartment. We never discussed the Spiders from Mars but explored our mutual admiration for Tony Newley. 
If you search out David Bowie’s first album you can listen to his very first single called the ‘The Laughing Gnome’ which sounds more like Newley’s early singles that it had any right too. Not only did David and I discuss Tony Newley but we also discussed Bob Dylan. How could two such different people have such identical thoughts about two such different people, it must have been blowin’ in the wind. Bowie discarded Ken Pitt as his show biz guru, and went on to become a worldwide phenomenon and I only ever saw him one more time. The truth of the matter is Ken freaked me out just a little too. All the wildly famous and brilliant people he had known and worked with, and the only time he really came to life was when as a young pre-war boy, he was introduced to Adolph Hitler. His eyes would take on a special sparkle as he discussed the sparkle in the Fuehrer eyes. I didn’t believe what David’s ex-wife Angie said about Ken but maybe, just maybe. 
Years later I was to perform at a private party for David at Los Angeles’ famous Ma Maison restaurant. Bowie had just completed a four-night engagement at L.A.’s massive Forum concert/basketball arena. I was hired to perform ‘wandering’ close-up magic for his guests. As not only a jobbing magician but also a giant fan of the thin white duke, I added what I considered a rather dashing touch to my performing outfit. I wore a bright red carnation in the buttonhole of my pinstripe suit. When I arrived at the restaurant I noticed that every waiter sported a similar botanical growth from his lapel. Being as socially contextually aware as the next guy I discarded my carnation in the kitchen trash can as discreetly and quickly as I could. Even in my twenties I was very aware of the social distinctions between a jobbing magician and an out of work actor, which is what most waiters are in Hollywood.As you can imagine and after show party for David Bowie, in L.A. in the seventies was not your average audience. I performed card tricks for two thirds of Fleetwood Mac, Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Tom Waits, Bette Middler and Andy Kauffman.
With a certain native cunning, I repeatedly performed a classic of magic known as the signed card in wallet. I figured with all those signed cards in my possession I would have a unique souvenir I would treasure for a lifetime. Which I did until it got lost during a house move a few years later.My supreme moment arrived when Mr. Stardust himself joined the party somewhere after the midnight hour. I was standing in the middle of the room with my autographed deck in my hands, and in walked God (or Bowie, as he was known to this crowd) I was standing in the center of the room looking very much the non-star but performer that I was. A hush filled the room and everyone stared at me, well OK, they stared behind me at David. I turned around and was eye to miss matched eye of the man himself. David looked at me and said: “Don’t I know you?” “Nick.” I replied. “You must be, ah, ah, hum David?” He gave a thin smile, the conversations in the room continued. “ I was a friend of Ken Pitt, I explained to him. “Tonight, I’m just doing magic though.”
“No.” He said: “Not any more, just have fun and enjoy the party.”
It was a neat moment. Right up there with; “Just call me Nelson.” I put the cards back in my pocket. Sat down and had a drink. Let me rephrase that, I sat down at a table with Tom Waits and Bette Midler and started doing shots of rum with Tom. This was a game you could not win, but who wouldn’t want to try. The theatrical vision that has kept Bowie relevant and reinvented was probably born while watching the same plays I watched. Maybe it is time for me to revisit “East Side Story” and get in touch with my inner actor?
