PROPOSITION BOWIE:

As we reported a while back, David Bowie has asked fans to phone in requests for their favorite songs--which Bowie has promised to perform on his upcoming U.S. concert tour (a nice gesture marred by Bowie’s crass use of a 900-number to record vote tallies). Dismayed by similar hype accompanying Bowie’s U.K. tour, England’s cheeky music weekly New Musical Express (NME) playfully tried to fix the vote by entering its own candidate in the phone-in scheme, campaigning for an obscure Bowie moldie called “Laughing Gnome.” With such headlines as “All Roads Lead to Gnome” and “Home Sweet Gnome,” NME has kept a running tally on “Gnome” votes, depicting the mounting totals with thermometer-style graphics. Last month, NME boasted that it had inspired more than 20,000 pro-”Gnome” votes--and to celebrate its triumph, offered readers a limited-edition “Bowie Tour 1990: Just Say Gnome” T-shirt. (NME said it commissioned “a team of internationally anonymous couturiers “ to produce the shirt, designed to “remind the moaning maestro of his democratic responsibilities at the concerts.”) Alas, NME’s campaign came to nought--when Bowie played London last week, “Gnome” was nowhere to be heard.