You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
The untimely, shocking, emotional death of the artist formerly known as Prince.
He died last week.
When he did, the world cried a purple tear.
People gathered at his warehouse mansion and knelt down unsure what to feel.
Bridges and buildings and municipal structures across the planet were lit up in a purple ethereal glow.
The diminutive entertainer with the androgynous smile stood only 5’2″ tall, but his talent was a mile high.
The prince of purple was many things to many people.
A singer, an entertainer, a revolutionary, mind bending boundary pusher.
I was always astounded by the raw musicianship of this Minnesota man.
With a guitar on stage, he was pure. He was Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and Eddie Van Halen.
And when he sang, he was Artetha Franklin and Michael Jackson.
He was a musical force.
I was in college when his songs started playing on the radio.
KLOS 95.5.
“That’s Little Red Corvette by Prince and the Revolution,” I remember Jim Ladd saying.
His songs filled up the Los Angeles skyline, thick with smog and heavy with heat.
Prince songs had a rhythm, a beat, a rock and roll energy that was new.
He was a black man filling the classic rock radio station with a sound that didn’t allow him to be classified.
His voice was haunting. His words spiritual.
Prince was like a tabernacle of musical mysticism.
Prince was a floating, ethereal purple force.
It was 1985 and Prince was starring in a new movie called Purple Rain.
A young musician, tormented by an abusive situation at home, must contend with a rival singer, a burgeoning romance and his own dissatisfied band as his star begins to rise.
I didn’t know who Prince was when I went to see the film.
I was a senior in college and the show was playing at the movie theater on campus.
I rode my Honda XL 500 up to the front door of the theater and parked.
It was college and nobody seemed to care that I parked a motorcycle on the sidewalk outside the theater.
I watched the movie and left the theater knowing I had experienced something bigger than the film, bigger than the audience.
I was energized, bathed in a purple veil of hope.
I needed to ride somewhere, feel the wind in my hair.
As we exited the theater, students scattered to wherever it is they came from.
I got on my bike, stood up on the kick starter and pushed down with all my strength.
VROOOOOOM
I felt like a God as the barely legal motorcycle ignited, commanding combustible attention, blowing energy bouncing into the sidewalk, sound cascading off the stucco building.
I remember co-eds stopping to look at me.
It was a look. A moment.
The movie was about Prince over coming odds. But the film was more of a vibe. It was something cool and he did it while he rode on his motorcycle across the screen.
He was cooler than cool. He was hipper than hip.
And when we left the theater, the roar of the freedom of his motorcycle filled our collective thoughts.
So when everyone else walked into a dark parking lot, I got on the back of a gasoline powered pony and roared into the celebrity of my own thoughts.
In that moment of acceleration and wind in my hair, I was cool as a Purple flash of light.
It was 1985. Gary Busey had yet to fall and crack his mellon. Helmets were optional. The closest I ever came to wearing a motorcycle helmet was a pair of $75 Vaurnet Sunglasses.
I rode onto MLK blvd near the L.A. Coliseum.
It was a warm Southern Cal night. The purple glow of possibility and the spirit of something great filled my thoughts.
As I rode by check cashing stores and neon liquor signs and apartment buildings with bars on the windows, I thought about the amazing talent I had just witnessed.
I passed low riders and sterno bums and rode deep into the heart of the ghetto.
I should have been scared. I was anything but.
Filled with a powerful purple rush I rode and rode and planned my life.
That was 30 years ago.
And now the man who gave me that moment I will never forget is gone.
Prince died at the unbelievably young age of 57.
He is 4 years older than me.
His Purple Rain anthem reminds me to embrace every moment.
Life is short.
As Prince and the Revolution once sang on a hot Southern California night:
I never meant 2 cause you any sorrow
I never meant 2 cause you any pain
I only wanted 2 one time see you laughing
I only wanted 2 see you laughing in the purple rain.
R.I.P. Prince.
Life’s Crazy™