Hi all! #introductions

I'm part of the pre-emptive (?) exodus from the bird app.

I have an account on .lol because it appeared LGBT specific, but I also have an account on mstdn.social. Not sure if that will get confusing.

I'm a writer. I write mainly about #spirituality, #enertainment, #movies, #music #gay, #lgbt issues and #politics.

I'm over 50. #Streisand is a hero. So is #Prince. o(+>. I love #Disneyland and #StarWars too.

Looking to connect with folks of similar interest!

@paulkatz I miss Prince so deeply. 😕

@wchanley

That makes two of us, my friend. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of him.

I wear his symbol around my neck.

#Prince #Prince4Ever
o(+>

@paulkatz I throw on Pop Life and I'm instantly 15 again, singing it to myself, hoping my parents won't pay *too* much attention to any of the lyrics to *anything* on Dirty Mind... hehe.

@wchanley

Oh I was covertly listening to 'Dirty Mind' too. But by the time 'Erotic City' came round, it got a little tougher...LOL!

"Pop Life". 1985. I was 15 too.

@paulkatz somehow, I managed to convince my *very* conservative, very christian parents to let me go to the Purple Rain tour that year. (I have no idea what I did to manage that...)

I saw him three or four more times (the 2004ever tour was such a knockout), but that first tour made me a lifelong little queer Princeling, from then on. 🙂

@wchanley

You were so fortunate! I remember trying to get tickets during "Friday Night Videos" on NBC (remember that?!) and didn't.

All I had was the Live '85 VHS!

I didn't get to see him live until 2002, when fans got to sit in on his sound check and chat with him.

But that '04 tour. I was front row because I was in the club. His security guard said to me at the end of the night, "Man you didn't stop dancing! Your feet OK?"

Thought you might want to read this:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-prince-experience-a-l_b_9792574

'The Prince Experience': A Longtime 'Fam' Honors The Artist

Now, instead of writing specifically about <em>Purple Rain,</em> I'm left to figure out how to encapsulate 32 years of "The Prince Experience."

HuffPost

@paulkatz YESPLZ (and thank you!)

The first hubs and I just marveled at that show (2004). The encore set remains deeply embedded in my memory of Prince, and him... just Prince, and a guitar, in that swivel chair, playing, singing, playing... slowly turning to face everyone (the whole show was in the round, for folks who didn't see later Prince tours, so there really weren't any bad seats).

And he just held us all completely enraptured, just by the sheer power of his brilliance. (con't)

@paulkatz The show that preceded it was amazing, of course, but Prince was always reliably fantastic, live... but oh, that encore set... I think it was like 30-45 mins, if memory serves.

It just blows my mind, even now. (And K. would be gone a couple of years later, so it's bittersweet on several levels, for me, with both him and Prince gone, as well.)

@wchanley

I'm so sorry about K....but of course completely relate to everything you're saying about that show.

I don't know if you're the type of fan to splurge for the deluxe releases they're putting out, but the concert in the "Welcome 2 America" set, even though it was 2011, was staged much like 2004 and brings me right back to those shows in the round!

@paulkatz (...I also secretly love Under the Cherry Moon, but I tend not to shout it from the rooftops, since it's so - unfairly! - derided.)
@paulkatz ...only confused men wear loafers 😉

@wchanley

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!

Give her that Bela Lugosi look....

@paulkatz oooh, thinking of, sort of, have you heard Meshell Ndegeocello's cover of Sometimes It Snows In April? (It will reliably reduce me to a weepy mess, it's so stunningly good.)

@wchanley

No!! I didn't know she covered it - listening now!!

@paulkatz it makes my cry missing... just way too many people 🙂

@wchanley

I love what she did with it. The little intricacies she switched up. Tears go here....

@paulkatz ...and love isn't love... until it's past.

I mean, I'm coming to this well loved song with around thirty years of experience losing people that 16 year old me didn't have, so that's inevitably going to color my perception of... everything.

Much as I suspect it does for any of us who lived through it.

Kev particularly loved Meshell... one of my greater regrets is that he's missed hearing this. He'd have adored it, as much as I do.

@wchanley

My personal sense is that your Kev is hearing it, through you.

I know it's not the same as him being there with you, but as today is the one year anniversary of the loss of someone very close to me...and some experiences I've had with respect to 'feeling' them....that's just my take on it.

I hope that comes across sensitively; that's my intention.

@paulkatz I dunno how much of an afterlife I believe in any more, but I appreciate you saying it all the same. 🙂

I'm just now realizing how many Prince songs are these kinds of touchpoints in my memory to people who are gone now... my best friend in the *universe* died in 2001, a day after he turned 31... and Glam Slam is me, right back to sweating my ass off, dancing with Tom... him doing these amazing ballet moves around my cane (I have CP)...

@paulkatz ...I can do this with too many Prince songs, really 🙂

@wchanley

I'm so sorry there has been so much loss. I completely understand what you are saying.

@paulkatz It's all good, really. 🙂 I miss them all, more than I can say (and I suspect I don't even need to try); but I like remembering Kev, and Tommy and... everybody. Nights like tonight give me good excuses to.

@wchanley

It keeps them alive....our memories....