Lunchtime Reflections on the Master
Summer’s end, Ukiah 1979. The van is full of squirrely Indian kids heading off to the softball field, or the movies, or wherever. It’s hot and we’re blooming. Someone’s got a radio with better reception than that of the van. It allows us to listen to ‘Lucky 13 – KDIA’ during the daylight hours. I hear this thing that changes my life in an instant. “I ain’t got no…money…” What band is this? How can the guitarist and the bassist be so damned tight? This singer also rules. Wait, is he singing about getting off on the radio? Prince, eh? I love it!
Fall, 1982. Through repeated, practically nonstop plays, I have become one with the “1999” cassette. My best friend, Hugga, and I listen to it while talking about it on the phone. Everybody who is anybody realizes that the first two albums by The Time are equally as good. There is only one way that this is possible…they are all created by the One. When he does appear in public, he is carried around by his bodyguard, Big Chick. Has anybody ever been as talented or interesting? We barely had time to stop laughing at those amazing jams by Vanity 6 before all of this dropped.
Summer, 1984. The year that the rest of the white people finally really got it.
March 31, 1987 – It has become traditional that the women down at Hayes Music expect me on the morning of the release of a new Prince or Prince-related album. Mom has known for several years that I am cutting class on these days to meet the UPS truck and grab my copy right out of the box. Sign O The Times is beautiful, if cold and dark. I have read every magazine article, cheesy pocket book or review that is available on the topic of Prince. No joke, I utilized the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature to accomplish this, so suck it, Internet.
Anybody that really knows me knows that I am at a loss right now. Is there really only Willie Nelson left? In any event, Prince brought so much beauty, wonder and joy to this life of mine. Many of you are what I like to think of as friends-in-Prince, first and foremost. We are those freaks. He freed us and showed us the way. Courage in the face of bigotry. Funk in the face of Reagan. Love is the law and God has a Dirty Mind.