Soundtrack to Mary

I can’t think of anyone whose career I am more interested in or more forgiving of than Prince’s. Let it be known, I’d follow the tiny man who penned “Shockadelica,” “The Cross,” “House Quake,” and “Bambi” into the gates of hell if he asked me to. In the nineties I was one of those diligent tools who would drop everything and hightail it to Chanhassen to happily sit outside Paisley Park for hours in sub-zero temperatures for his “surprise three a.m. gigs”… that sometimes never happened. Let’s see, I can’t feel my feet, I have to be at work in two hours, and all I got was this lousy souvenir tambourine shaped like a part of the male anatomy? Cool. Let’s do it again tomorrow night! To this day I could cry that I loaned a cute boy my “sold under the counter” vinyl copy of The Black Album that he forgot was left in his car that had been towed to the impound lot where it sat in his back seat for five record high temperature days one August.

In case you think I’m some drooling Prince-can-do-no-wrong Minnesotan, I’ll risk public stoning by saying I think Purple Rain is ass. I stumbled upon it recently while channel surfing, all I could think was “ouch, there’s a time in history that hasn’t aged well.” Guitarist Wendy Melvoin’s many saucy stage threads made my teeth ache: miniskirt, nylons, and white basketball high tops? No, please. And I’m sorry, “Dr.” Fink, but somehow your stage persona seems like an afterthought. “Get the keyboard player some scrubs and be sure to cover his Jheri Curl and his face.”

The vast cavern between P’s hits and misses is what makes him so fascinating to me. I don’t think he consciously thinks, “Hmmm… Let me write a real stink-burger opus, with an amateurish screenplay to match, just to irritate the haters.” On second thought, maybe he does. Oddly enough, I could respect that. Other than his ill musicianship, it’s the mystery of the man that I love. It’s all very Wonka-like. In fact, rumor has it Around the World in a Day was produced by Oompa-Loompas.

I’m still surprised by the sound of his speaking voice coming out of that tight l’il body. You think it’s going to be squeaky and small and then out comes the sound of chocolate melting in the mouth of a baritone pre-op transsexual. Much like my curiosity with the pope, you can’t picture either of them doing normal, everyday things. Plunging a toilet, waiting for the cable guy? Not so much. It’s also very important to me to know if either of them owns jeans. I like to think that Prince even has four-inch heeled slippers built into the feet of his jammies.

Send your purple prose to Mary Lucia at popularcreeps@yahoo.com.