Prince

Rolling Stone May 19, 2016

While my guitar gently weeps ... I was caught in a Prince reel on YouTube last night watching him blaze across the universe. When he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the same night at George Harrison, as a solo artist, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne joined Dhani, Harrison's son, in singing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Petty and Lynne were very close to Harrison and sang, as far as I'm concerned, a lackluster performance. They hammered the nails into the coffin. Prince, on the other hand, when he joined in at the end of the classic Harrison song, made his guitar weep. The emotion that he pulled off of his instrument was that of the Holy Spirit. Though I saw an interview with Harrison towards the end of his life where he explained that his questions about life were not it, but what happens next, I think that he would appreciate that Prince channeled the essence of the life that he left behind

Prince died just last month on my birthday. I was sitting in a doctor's office when the news flashed on my cell phone screen. I gasped. Someone asked, 'what's wrong?' Prince died. With no reaction from the answer, I wasn't in the right company to feel it. And I felt ... weirdly prophetic that I had just written about criticizing him for not, seemingly, taking advice about his music. He did everything ... played every instrument, produced, mixed. No one had a vote except Prince. I wonder why he was on my mind? And then he dies? Weird.

But Prince was an odd bird. In an interview from 2014 in  "Rolling Stone" this week, Prince had a lot to say. Some of it was wonderful, and other things made it seem entirely plausible that he was not long for this world. For one, he didn't eat much and explained how if one stops eating for 3 days, the need to eat is severely diminished. And his staffers would have to remind him to drink water. Because apparently one doesn't need much of that either. Toward the end of his life, he was celibate. He said that he used that energy creatively. So, let's see here ... he didn't eat, drink, or have sex. His music was his sustenance. But if that was the case, why did he die? He'd been denying himself of basic human needs and surviving on funk for who knows how many years ... why now did his body decide to give up on itself?

With Bowie, it made more sense. He had cancer. It ate his liver. And one cannot live without that. But nothing was eating Prince ... except, possibly, some Percocet. I hope that isn't the case, but it's hard to understand what else it could be. It bothers me that he was alone when he died. I don't know why as he seemed to do a lot by himself.

I tore these pictures because it shows his sexy self. That is the Prince that I am going to remember. Not someone who starved himself or died of dehydration or being lonely. I want to think of him funky  with nasty sweat dripping down into his zebra striped bikini briefs turning it up. Nothing compares to him.