This is not the kind of news you want to wake up to on a Monday morning, or ever, but alas:

David Bowie, the infinitely changeable, fiercely forward-looking songwriter who taught generations of musicians about the power of drama, images and personas, died on Sunday, two days after his 69th birthday.

Mr. Bowie’s death was confirmed by his publicist, Steve Martin, on Monday morning.

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He died after an 18-month battle with cancer, according to a statement on Mr. Bowie’s social-media accounts.

“David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family,” a post on his Facebook page read.

If you are an extra old, perhaps you remember doing all the drugs back in the day while trippin' balls (although you extra olds didn't call it that back then, did you?) while listening to "Space Oddity" and the adventures of Major Tom. If you are a moderate old, you may remember obsessively watching Labyrinth as a child (which was awesome, yes it was) and wanting to go to there and sing along with the creepy cool guy, about how you remind us of the babe (what babe? the babe with the power!), as your parents chuckled because haha, little one, you have no idea just how creepy cool that guy really is.

If you are a young old, please note that yo, VIP, David Bowie did not steal jack squat from Vanilla Ice, dumbass.

[contextly_sidebar id="P43WdrDDxHyjuAkokxvHqO1oTx0O37lR"]If you are Bill Donohue of the Catholic League of Bill Donohue, you are a raging a-hole who will probably say something really rude and inappropriate in the next 24 hours about the death of legendary icon awesome David Bowie, so here's a preemptive "fuck you, Bill Donohue" just in case.

But if you are One Of Us, you are invited to put on your red shoes and dance the blues, 'cause we imagine he'd want that, and share your most favorite favorites of David Bowie in the comments, which we do not allow except maybe this one time.

[NYT]