And the Tears Began to Fall (Again)

Just when I thought I had fully recovered from the tragic lost of our beloved Prince, I discovered this wonderful tribute.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I don't miss him.  I'm just saying that I have accepted his death and moved on with life.  Well, I thought I had.  This video is called APRIL SNOWS and it is by four musicians in New York who wanted to pay tribute to Prince.  They came together and recorded their completely spontaneous version of Sometimes It Snows In April.  This is not a new video, it was recorded back in May, but it was new to me.  Take a look below:

I will be the first to admit, I lost it about a third of the way through this video and the tears began to fall like rain. I don't know why.  I've listen to this song several times over the last several months and it hasn't bothered me but this version...something about it got to me. I can't pinpoint it or describe it but something about it touched my soul. I guess maybe I will never truly get over Prince's death but with videos like this, I can always celebrate his life.  After all, I think that's what he would've wanted.

Love4OneAnother! Love4EachOther! Love4UsAll!

Showing off an advanced degree in Musicology, Jared Grant delivers an amazing acapella version of the Prince title track.

So, what did you think? Did he graduate with honors? I think so and I think Prince would have loved this version and would have loved this young man's talent!!

Love4OneAnother at Thanksgiving

Last week, those of us here in the United States celebrated Thanksgiving, a time to be thankful for one's blessings.  If ever there was a perfect time for the feeling of Love4OneAnother, this would be one of those times in my opinion.  That's why I am writing this post.  To share an experience I had a couple of days before Thanksgiving.

 
It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and I was at the grocery store doing my weekly shopping.  The store was more crowded than usual, which is common this time of year, as people are preparing for their big Thanksgiving dinners. While walking down one of the aisles, I noticed an elderly lady (probably in her mid- to late 70s) on one of those motorized shopping carts.  She looked like she was in distress as she had a very worried look on her face.  I asked her, "Ma'am, is everything okay?" She replied, "I can't turn my cart around." I asked her why not and she said, "No one will let me." As she looked around wildly at everyone rushing by her.  I told her that wasn't a problem.  I took my cart and blocked the aisle in front of her and then walked behind her and told everyone to hold up for a moment.  She was able to get her cart turned around with no problem, thanked me and headed on to the next aisle.  I told everyone else thanks for waiting and then headed to the next aisle.  When I got there, I saw the same lady struggling to get an item off the top shelf.  So I walked over and got it for her.  We made our way down the aisle together and I helped her get three or four more items before we got to the end of the aisle.  When we got to the end of the aisle, she turned to the right while I turned left.

As I am walking away, another woman approached me and said, "Sir, I think your mother went the other way." I laughed and told her that wasn't my mother and that I had never met her before today.  The lady said she saw me helping her and assumed it was my mother and I told her, "Nope, never seen her before today."  So then the lady asked me the question that triggered this post.  She asked me, "Then why did you help her?" I was shocked!!! I looked at the lady and asked her to repeat her question.  She said, "If you don't know her, then why did you help her?" I looked her straight in the eyes and said, "That's not the question you should be asking.  The question you should be asking is why didn't YOU help her? That's what you should be asking.  Have a Happy Thanksgiving." I then turned and walked away.  When I got to the end of the aisle, I looked back and the woman was still standing in the same place thinking about what I said.  Hopefully I opened up her mind if just for a minute.

This elderly lady needed help and I helped her.  I didn't know her but I didn't need to because that's what we are supposed to do.  For that one moment in time, that lady and I were in Paisley Park! Isn't that what Love4OneAnother is all about? Shouldn't this be the true spirit of Thanksgiving? Shouldn't this be what the human race strives to achieve? Then again, am I just a dreamer too?

Love4OneAnother! Love4EachOther! Love4UsAll! Peace!

Tom Ibarra Pays Tribute to Prince

Nice little tribute to Prince by Tom Ibarra as he delivers a unique interpretation of Something In The Water (Does Not Compute). Check it out below.

Hope you enjoyed it.  Until next time, peace & B-wild!

The Prince of Music

FUNKNROLL

Please welcome The Revolution!

Free Ur Mind From This Rat Race

Glam Slam
Free your mind from this rat race
Glam Slam
Escape!

Pop quiz time! How do you get 46,000 people to forward an article that amounts to nothing more than gibberish? You give it a sensational headline. After all, most people don't read anything more than the headline before forwarding anything on to the masses. That's how the true thieves in the temple get to us. They know it's like herding sheep blindly through a fantasy. Because few people question what they read anymore. It's all clickbait for the rat race and its time we escaped. Now that I have thoroughly confused you, let me explain exactly what I am talking about here.

It seems that the satirical news site Science Post wanted to have fun with people so they made a post on Facebook with the headline, "Study: 70% of Facebook users only read the headline of science stories before commenting." Now the text of this post was nothing more than lorem ipsum but that didn't stop more than 46,000 people from sharing the post with their friends. Now let's think about that for a minute.  First, the post is nothing but lorem ipsum.  For those of you who may not know what that is, lorem ipsum is defined as:

In publishing and graphic design, lorem ipsum is a filler text commonly used to demonstrate the graphic elements of a document or visual presentation. The lorem ipsum text is typically a scrambled section of De finibus bonorum et malorum, a 1st-century BC Latin text by Cicero, with words altered, added, and removed to make it nonsensical, improper Latin.

So, lorem ipsum basically amounts to nothing more than gibberish. Now, let's look at the post's headline, "Study: 70% of Facebook users only read the headline of science stories before commenting." According to this, 70% of the people who read this should have commented without reading the article (which they couldn't read anyway because it was gibberish). I don't know how many commented but more than 46,000 people shared it. How do you share an article that is total gibberish? I don't get it! Come on people, free your mind from this rat race!!!

Now to show you that the above incident is not a fluke. A new study by computer scientists at Columbia University with the French National Institute shows that 59% of the links that are actually shared on social media have never been clicked. Once again, herding sheep blindly through a fantasy! Wake up children! Free Urself! Almost 60% of people retweet articles without ever actually reading them? Then what's to be expected from 3-3? Absolutely nothing! The Purple Army knows what I'm talking about!  Anyway, here is part of the Chicago Tribune's article on the subject:

Worse, the study finds that these sort of blind peer-to-peer shares are really important in determining what news gets circulated and what just fades off the public radar. So your thoughtless retweets, and those of your friends, are actually shaping our shared political and cultural agendas.

"People are more willing to share an article than read it," study co-author Arnaud Legout said in a statement. "This is typical of modern information consumption. People form an opinion based on a summary, or a summary of summaries, without making the effort to go deeper."

To verify that depressing piece of conventional internet wisdom, Legout and his co-authors collected two data sets: the first, on all tweets containing Bit.ly-shortened links to five major news sources during a one-month period last summer; the second, on all of the clicks attached to that set of shortened links, as logged by Bit.ly, during the same period. After cleaning and collating that data, the researchers basically found themselves with a map to how news goes viral on Twitter.

And that map showed, pretty clearly, that "viral" news is widely shared — but not necessarily, you know, read. (I'm really only typing this sentence for 4 in 10 people in the audience.)

The researchers made a few other telling observations, as well: Most clicks to news stories, they found, were made on links shared by regular Twitter users, and not the media organization itself. The links that users clicked were much older than we generally assume — some had been published for several days, in fact

But most interesting, for our purposes, is this habit of sharing without clicking — a habit that, when you think about it, explains so much of the oft-demoralizing cesspool that is internet culture. Among the many phenomena we'd tentatively attribute, in large part, to the trend: the rise of sharebait (nee clickbait) and the general BuzzFeedification of traditional media; the internet hoax-industrial complex, which only seems to be growing stronger; and the utter lack of intelligent online discourse around any remotely complicated, controversial topic. (you can read the full article here)

So is this the colonized mind? Is this the microchip in your neck?  When will we wake up and realize that they are force-feeding us the story they want us to hear and not the truth? You can see in the study above how we propagate their lies by taking their stories viral. We base our opinion on the summary of a summary or an opinion of an opinion. We need to do the work and go deeper than that so grab your scuba gear! Ask the questions that need to be asked! Don't be afraid to find the truth! Free your mind from the rat race and FREE URSELF!

If U look, Ur sure gonna find
Throughout mankind's history
A colonized mind
The one in power makes law
Under which the colonized fall
But without God it's just the blind leading the blind

Love4OneAnother! Love4EachOther! Love4UsAll! Peace & B-Wild!

Retrospeculation with NPGMC

Wow, I can't believe that it's been a month since I've posted here.  So much has gone on that you would have thought I would've posted something. Anything.  But nope, not a thing.  Hmmm... well time to remedy that.  Since my last post we found out the actual cause of death for Prince but I don't want to discuss that in this post. Maybe in a later post I'll broach the subject but I am here for a specific reason. Let's see, what else has happened in the last month? Oh yeah!!! The BET Awards kept their promise and gave us a tribute worthy of his Purpleness unlike that other awards show.  Yeah, I'm talking about you Billboard and your weak @ss Madonna tribute that wouldn't have made it in a third-class karaoke bar.  But, I'm not here to talk about the BET tribute either.  No, like I said, I am here for a specific reason.  I am here to retrospeculate on the NPGMC.

First off, let me say, I know that retrospeculate is not an actual word but hey, it's my blog and I like the sound of it.  Besides, it describes what I am doing perfectly.  I'm speculating what might have happened if certain events had happened in the past in a different way.  Anyway, it's not like I invented the word.  I stole it from Prince and the NPGMC.  Track down the commentary Freedom, Pt. 2 from the 2003 version of the NPGMC and you will see Prince used it first. So there!!! Oh lawd, I sound like I'm in third grade! Once again I digress. Or maybe I regressed in my digression? Huh? Okay, forget all that noise and let's get on with this retrospeculation thang!

So, on February 14, 2001, the world (at least all the Purple Party People and True Funk Soldiers) was introduced to the first version of the New Power Generation Music Club.  It was basically a download manager/media player that gave you access to various media made available by the club. Looking back at that first incarnation, I'm astounded I actually joined.  It was pretty lame but then again, by 2001 standards.... hell, who am I kidding.  It was Prince's website! I was joining! And join I did.  I was a loyal member of the NPGMC until it closed in 2006.  I bought the music, the merchandise and the tickets.  Especially the tickets.  Afterall, members got the best seats, didn't we? I know when I got my Musiclology 2004ever tickets through the club, I was on the front row.  That is a show I will never forget!!!! So yeah, I'm like sailing along doing the whole club member thing like a good little soldier when 2006 rolls around and POOF!!!!! It was gone!!! (Side note: I think this is first time I have ever typed the word poof, much less used it on a blog post! So don't judge me! Now back to my regularly scheduled rambling.) But what if that hadn't happened? What if Prince had kept the club open and not lost interest in it like so many of his other projects?

Would we have gotten  more music through the club than we did in real life? Maybe a few more live videos? How about a concert snippet or two from the 21 Nights in London concerts? Or maybe a live album from the 3121 residency in Las Vegas? I know, we could have gotten a concert video, a la Lovesexy Live, of the Welcome 2 America tour! Yeah, he could have released 3121 and Lotusflower through the club and...and...uh...hmmm....wait a minute. So in this alternate timeline that I am retrospeculating on, Prince hasn't lost interest in the NPGMC so he may not have come up with 3121.  There may not have been a Lotusflower for him to release.  His journey would have been greatly altered and may not have even crossed the path of...say....Welcome 2 America or Welcome 2 anything for that matter.  It's that whole Butterfly Effect theory playing out in my purple universe! Instead of Schrodinger's Cat, I have created Schrodinger's Purple Yoda! Oh wow, I think I have officially lost it now.  

I guess this has made me realize that it was probably a good thing that the NPGMC closed down when it did since he moved on to so many other things that are essential in the Purpleverse (that's the Purple Universe. Get it? Of course you do. Why am I explaining things to you? You are obviously all very intelligent since you listen to Prince. But not too smart if you actually read this stuff. LOL!). Wait...there I go with the regressing digression again! Let me try to wrap this up since I have rambled a lot longer than I meant to when I started.  

Yesterday, princeonlinemuseum.com went live and they offer a virtual walk-through of Prince's various websites from over the years.  The site is run by the same people that brought us these sites to begin with and are a great document to Prince's large on-line presence over the years.  If you get the chance, I strongly recommend you visit the site and take a cyberstroll down random access memory lane. I spent hours reading the various commentaries Prince wrote that were posted on the different sites. Matter of fact, I will probably write a post or three at a later date about some of the articles he wrote and posted.  But while reading all the stuff he posted on the NPGMC, I started to wonder what it would have been like if the club was still around. And that's how we ended up here...wherever here is.  Just kidding, I know where here is....it's in the opposite direction from there. What??? Nevermind. Just ignore the man behind the curtain who may be a little senile and sleep deprived. Now, quit reading and head over to princeonlinemuseum.com and remember the Days of Wild!

A Tribute 4 the Fans

There have been countless tributes to Prince since his untimely death. Some were very good and some were...well...not so good (Madonna anyone?).  But this video in my opinion is one of the best tributes I have seen.

Olga Nunes Tribute to Prince

So Olga Nunes shared this wonderful tribute to Prince titled This Is What It Sound Like.  It is a great cover of When Doves Cry and I have watched this over and over.


Head over to her page here to read more about the video and to also find out how to order a copy of the print used in the video.  The artist who painted it has made it available and I have already ordered mine so grab it now while you can.

Another Photoshop

Just more Photoshop experimenting!

Jimmy Fallon shares Prince ping pong story

Jimmy Fallon shares a great story about how Prince challenged him to a game of ping pong:

Great story to share about Prince!

I just can’t believe all the things people say

I just can’t believe all the things people say

Controversy

So who was the real Prince? That's the question it seems that Billy Jack Bitch keeps asking every day on the latest edition of the Menda City News. Go to the market and all you see is trash mags promising you a look inside the secret world of Prince.  But what do they know? Not a damn thing! Their articles are filled with sensational suppositions and half-thought out conspiracy theories. He was a pill-popping drug addict! He was dying of cancer! He was dying of AIDS! He was murdered because he fought for his master tapes! He was a funkified alien who was recalled to the Mothership by Dr. Funkenstein! All these reasons for his death have been reported by the so-called media since that fateful day in April.  Well, maybe not the Dr. Funkenstein recall to the Mothership.  I just threw that in there but it's just as plausible as any of the mind-numbing pabulum spewed by these sound-bite social-media-swilling journalists.  So I repeat my initial question, who was the real Prince?

How did I get in this predicament?
How did I get in this jam?
The person that they accuse me of being of
That's not the one I really am

Prince was many things to all of us.  He was not just a musician, producer, writer, composer, performer and singer.  He was the Partyman.  He was Camille, Joey Coco, Alexander Nevermind and Spooky Electric.  He was Jamie Starr! He was funk, rock, soul, jazz, rhythm and blues and pop! He was a showman like none of us had ever seen.  You could not go to a Prince show and walk away feeling cheated.  No. You walked away exhausted, exhilarated, ecstatic, and overwhelmed.  You walked away knowing that you just witnessed the greatest show you had ever seen (at least until your next Prince show). When you went to a Prince show, you saw the New Power Generation come alive.  You became part of the Rainbow Children. You were a member of the Purple Army. There were no blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians or any other ethnicities at a Prince concert.  There was just the human race colored purple and we came together for at least one night to party like it was 1999!!!! I have met so many wonderful people over the years through the Prince community on line and at concerts all because of our love for Prince.  But where do we go from here?

Surrender all ye sad of heart

Today hold back no tears

The past is gone when we can

Start conquering our fears

I know some of you are still having a hard time accepting that Prince is gone and I understand that.  We are all sort of lost now.  We are all like the Strays of the World and it's okay to let the tears flow but eventually we must move on to the next chapter of our lives. That doesn't mean we forget Prince.  How could anyone forget him? It just means that we take him forward with us.  The memories he gave us.  The music, oh man, the music! There is so much music and since his death, I have opened the minds of several new fans to musical genius that was Prince.  No....the musical genius that IS Prince! For as long as he lives in our hearts and minds, he is still alive! He merely transformed! He transcended to a higher plane of existence!

Using a special code he accessed his mind

In search of the reason why

In passion and fashion he began travelin’ time

3rd eye, 3rd eye, 3rd eye

On Twitter, I have seen many people keep saying that they hope that this is all just a dream. Maybe it all is just a dream.  Maybe Prince was just a dream.  I mean, how could one man be that talented and that prolific and not be a dream.  But, I know it's not a dream. That's why I am thankful I have these great friends and purple family to lean on to help me get through this. By talking to them, I am able to sort through all the crazy stories and remember that those wild accusations are not who the real Prince was! Quite simply he was.......PRINCE!!!!

Hollyrock ain’t all it seems

Don’t get too serious,

it’s just a dream

Don’t forget your friends,

they’re all you’ve got

Listen to the story of a man

I am not

Sorry for rambling but I needed to say some of this to get it off my chest! Thanks for listening.... uh ...reading. 

 

Playing with Photoshop

I was just experimenting with Photoshop.

 

I think they turned out pretty well.

Nothing Compares 2 Tributes

Here are 2 tributes to Prince.  The first is by fDeluxe, better known as The Family, as they recently re-recorded their Prince-penned song Nothing Compares 2 U as a tribute to the late singer.


And here is the Dixie Chicks performing Nothing Compares 2 U in Horsens, Denmark on 04/22/16, the day after Prince died.

What can I say, both will bring tears to your eyes!

Choir! Choir! Choir! performs When Doves Cry

On May 2nd, Toronto's Choir! Choir! Choir! packed 2000 people into Toronto's Massey Hall to perform When Doves Cry in three-part harmony in tribute to Prince.  These people aren't members of the choir but just normal people off the street and actually paid $19.99 for the opportunity to participate in this tribute to late musical icon.  Proceeds from the event were donated to two Toronto music education charities, the Regent Park School of Music, a non-profit community music school whose mandate is to provide music education to underprivileged youth in Regent Park and other areas of the City of Toronto, and Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall’s Share the Music Education and outreach program.

“For more than 5 years, C!C!C! have met twice weekly to celebrate the songs that define our lives.” remarks Nobu Adilman, co-founder of C!C!C! “When we heard the news about Prince we were shocked and upset. Like most people, we wanted to get together and share our love for his music. The outreach from the community was instant as it was overwhelming - it was obvious people were mourning and wanted to come together.”

“The world of music has lost too many legends in 2016. We want to do everything we can to respect and celebrate them” says Adilman. “Prince was all love, deep funk and pure rock. His style and songs made for the world's most inclusive dance party, so let's go crazy, gather thousands of singers, and pay respect to the enormous legacy he left behind."

NOTHING COMPARES 2 U

Kevin Smith pays respect to Prince

Kevin Smith pays respect to Prince on his show Fat Man on Batman (PG-13 due to language):
01:10 -- Prince and Batman!
05:20 -- Prince was the American Dream
08:00 -- Prince had one of the first Online Albums
09:35 -- Prince, Kevin Smith, SNL and Fred Armisen
11:40 -- Prince was the Lewis and Clark of Pussy
14:20 -- Prince was Bowie for Black Kids -- Marc
19:40 -- Prince took a shot at Kevin Smith and Jersey Girl
25:50 -- Prince, Mayte and a story Kevin Smith has Never Told
33:00 -- Prince used to tease Michael Jackson
38:38 -- Prince and How Fucking Wrong it is We Saw his Entire Career
40:50 -- Prince Danced with Kevin's Kid Harley!
42:55 -- Prince and how Good His Graffiti Bridge Actually Is!
45:03 -- Prince and Bryant Gumbel
48:05 -- Prince and the Rain and the Super Bowl
53:30 -- Prince and his Charity
57:45 -- Prince and the Batman
1:03:40 -- Prince -- His Vault is his Will
1:06:11 -- Kevin and Marc give their Prince Recommendations

How Will U Know The Truth?

I'm just a no-name reporter
I wish I had nothing 2 say
Looking through my new camcorder
Trying 2 find a crime that pays
I get hit by mortars, everywhere I go I'm loitering
Chaos and disorder ruinin' my world 2day

That's the best way I can think of to describe what is going on right now with everything in the purple world after the tragic death of Prince.  With the rumor-mill operating in overtime, the media outlets, led by "Pulitzer prize winning" TMZ, are churning out one rampant, ludicrous article after another. "Prince Overdosed on Percocet!" "Prince had an out of control cocaine habit!" "Prince was murdered!" "Prince was an alien and called back to the mothership!" These are just some of the headlines that have been making the news lately. Well, maybe not the alien called back to the mothership headline.  I just made that up to show how ridiculous these sounded.  But you get the idea. The Carver County Sheriff's Office is still conducting its investigation into Prince's death and the autopsy results have yet to be released so all anyone can do is speculate and boy are they ever doing that. I understand wanting answers but why do so many feel the need to try and destroy the public image of the man that they practically ignored when he was alive? Why? Because that's what sells. Scandalous! 

What if half the things ever said
Turned out 2 be a lie...
How will U know the Truth
If U were given all the answers
And U stopped 2 wonder why
But how will U know the Truth

Will we ever know the truth about what truly led to the sudden untimely death of Prince? Who knows but there are some truths that we do know. Was he a once in a lifetime musician? Truth! Was he a musical influence of numerous artists of this generation? Truth! Was he one of the greatest, if not the greatest, live performer to grace the stage? Truth! Did he challenge the corporate music machine and make significant strides for artistic freedom? Truth! These are the things we need to remember and forget all that other noise! Remember how he lived and not how he died!

4teen years and tears I've longed 2 sing my song
But a horse couldn't drag your ass 2 put me on
But now I've got an army and we're three million strong
This song will ring in your ears when we are gone

And he still has an army! The Purple Army! The Prince Army! The Rainbow Children! The NPGMC! Whatever name you want to give it, we are an army and we stand tall and RISE UP for the man we followed.  We remember the way his music made us party, made us dance and brought out the raw emotions like no one else could.  We remember the man that could drive a crowd into a frenzy by just walking out on stage.  He once stole an entire awards show and that was just as a presenter.  These are the things we need to remember and not the latest headlines from the Menda City Media!  So to all the purple people out there, remember the Partyman that we all fell In Love with who took us to Erotic City in his Little Red Corvette. And even though he didn't leave a will, to the all gatekeepers of the mass media...

It's in his will, I read it
He shot 2 kill, he said it
4 those who know the number and don't call
Huh, fuck all y'all