Next up in the queue is “How Does the Grass Grow,” for which no video — official, fan-made, or even AI — seems to exist. But if you stop at “How Does the Grass” you get a bunch of hits for “Tell me how the grass tastes little man.” This appears to be a meme derived from a clip of a Renaissance Faire of some kind, where the larger of two combatants utters the phrase in question before laying his opponent out brutally with a thrust of the shield.

As is often the case, it is hard to tell which version is the original, but I think it’s this one:

It would be funnier if it were the little guy taking out the big one. As it is, it’s just a bit of bullying, though there is a certain Pythonesque Comedy of Cruelty appeal to it.

But now I am thinking of “Shut Up Little Man,” a meme of sorts from another age. How to describe it? Help me out, Wikipedia:

Shut Up, Little Man! is the title of audio vérité recordings of two argumentative and violent alcoholics, Peter J. Haskett and Raymond Huffman in San Francisco…. The recordings were made by “Eddie Lee Sausage” and “Mitchell D.,” who lived in a bright pink apartment building at 237 Steiner Street (dubbed the “Pepto Bismol Palace”) in San Francisco’s Lower Haight district. Eddie Lee and Mitchell moved into the apartment in 1987, and discovered that their neighbors, Haskett and Huffman, argued nearly constantly, with Peter often shouting “shut up, little man!” at Ray.

These recordings were later distributed to the world on cassette tapes, one of which I still have here somewhere. Later still the phenomenon begat a full-length documentary, which you’ll have to click through to see:

So what does all this have to do with David Bowie? Maybe I can relate it to the “little fat man who sold his dreams”? Ah, fuck it, everything is connected. If you want a deeper dive into “How Does the Grass Grow” I commend you, as always, to O’Leary, who has a lot to say on the subject. Otherwise… carry on, people.